June 16, 2005 - Redlands, California - ESRI announced Kentucky's Division of Geographic Information (DGI) has created two new geographic information system (GIS) utilities supporting enterprise GIS across the Commonwealth based on its ArcSDE and ArcIMS software products. The GIS utilities, KYRaster and KYVector, are the supporting infrastructure to its Kentucky Geography Network, or KYGEONET, which is a repository for GIS data resources in the Commonwealth and can be accessed by all Commonwealth agencies, regional entities, and local government within Kentucky.

ESRI ArcSDE is used to manage more than 12 raster data layers in KYRaster and nearly 125 layers of vector data in KYVector for users throughout the Commonwealth. Says Kent Anness, GIS manager, DGI, "This true enterprise implementation will allow agencies that are just getting into GIS to enter this exciting field without having to buy a server to store base data. Being able to use ESRI ArcSDE to serve this data to entities across the Commonwealth is reducing the cost and resources required for departmental use of GIS."

KYRaster and KYVector are housed in the Commonwealth's state-of-the-art Cold Harbor Computing Center under the direction of Governor Ernie Fletcher, Commissioner Mike Inman, and Director Gary R. Harp. These resources stand in mirrored ArcSDE instances to separate data traffic and reduce contention between users for the GIS data resources.

One instance supports more than 40 thematic ArcIMS sites, Kentucky's connection to The National Map of the USGS, the Geospatial One-Stop, and the newly created Kentucky Event Mapping & Analysis Portal (KEMAP). Nearly 9,000 unique visitors accessed these resources in May. The secure KEMAP service was created for Kentucky Homeland Security, the National Guard, Kentucky State Police, Kentucky Emergency Management, and other entities that have a true need for access to such information.

The second ArcSDE instance is dedicated to providing all users on the Commonwealth’s wide area network (WAN) with direct access to all geospatial data resources that are available through KYGEONET. Through the WAN, data stewards, or KYGEONET data publishers, can securely connect to their workspace and provide updates as new data is generated. These updates are then rolled into the master ArcSDE instance so all users have immediate access to the most current information.

Formal announcement and rollout of these services were carried out during the April meeting of the ESRI Kentucky Users Group. Approximately 100 attendees were given an overview of the services along with a demonstration of how the services could be accessed using ESRI client software packages including ArcExplorer and ArcGIS Desktop.

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Karen Richardson, ESRI
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