29 Cloud-Based Approach Revolutionizes Interagency Imagery Data Sharing Guiding Good Governance The US Forest Service spearheaded an effort to increase access to its trove of more than a petabyte of aerial imagery and raster datasets. This culminated in a crossagency geospatial data sharing service that provides cost savings, increases capacity, and delivers more efficient data management of high-resolution aerial imagery and raster data. For 20 years, the US Forest Service has served highresolution aerial imagery to more than 12,000 people who use GIS technology to analyze images to answer questions about forest health. Imagery has helped the Forest Service revolutionize the way forests are monitored and managed, including detecting pests and diseases earlier, assessing habitats for endangered and threatened species, conducting research of forest dynamics and ecosystem processes, and monitoring and managing wildfires. A move to a new data center resulted in an unsustainable 1,300 percent cost increase, which left Forest Service administrators searching for a way to continue to use imagery to enhance operations. Instead of searching for ways to lower the cost, imagery experts had an idea. What if they could team with other federal agencies to make the leap to the cloud? They reasoned that a cloud approach could eliminate data duplication across agencies while unlocking new capabilities. It could also help agencies make the best use of the pipeline of high-resolution imagery the federal government procures from a network of providers. “At the start of this, we had a feeling of skeptical optimism,” said John Gillham, a contractor working as a project manager
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