Background / History
Congress created the U.S. Geological Survey in 1879 as a science agency for the Department of the Interior. The USGS serves as a national science provider and fact-finding agency that provides a scientific understanding about natural resource conditions, issues, and problems. USGS scientists collect, monitor and analyze large amounts of data about the Earth and solar system. The government and citizens in all walks of life use the information the USGS produces for various reasons including to address pressing social issues. The USGS uses the vast scientific expertise for a wide range of products such as maps and scientific solutions such as wetlands restoration and hazardous waste disposal.

The USGS Terrestrial Remote Sensing Team at the Flagstaff Field Center consists of a four-member group: Pat Chavez (Remote Sensing Scientist and Group Leader), Stuart Sides (Computer Scientist), Deborah Lee Soltesz (Web Mistress), and Miguel Velasco (Image Processing Specialist). They work with satellite multispectral, airborne photos, shipborne sidescan sonar, and DEM digital images. This team does such things as digital mosaicking, extraction and mapping of earth science information, geometric and radiometric calibration and corrections, and multitemporal change detection. The team has set up TerraWeb as a way for people to access this information along with a way to organize and manage some of their data.

Currently USGS TerraWeb applications have minimal security. Users are not required to log on to access these web applications. No current user management system is in place. Data management and data analysis/manipulation is the main function of many of these applications, and it is imperative that if work is going to be done using these systems that there be some sort of security standards. These TerraWeb applications are fairly new, therefore application uses and functions are evolving for the groups needs.

Business Issues
· Security is the biggest business issue that is faced in this project.
· There needs to be a user-friendly interface.
· There will be NO browser specific tags, and NO cookies.
· The project must comply with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Amendments of 1998, section 508.
· Since the project is all web based it is important that the server is accessible and fast enough to handle a given number of users.

Some of the other important business issues related to this project are how to allow access to multiple web-applications, and how to effectively manage users and the data that they have access to.

Value of a Technology Solution
This project will facilitate/support a way for users to securely and easily have access to TerraWeb applications. The client will have a generic interface to all of the current and future web applications. The TerraUser solution will be a cost effective and easily modifiable solution to current and future needs. It does not have the extreme cost or confusing complexity of commercially available solutions to this problem.

Competitive Products
At the moment we are not aware of competitive products that meets the specialized needs of the project.

Business Environment
Since the technologies that the project is being developed on are cutting edge, there are always going to be changes to the solution, thus we expect changes in the requirements. Since this project is designed as an interface to applications that deal with scientific data management and analysis, we will use a modular design. User expectations are always high when it comes to security and user management. There is a demand for our product in many areas within the user market and beyond.

Assumptions and Dependencies
Listed below are assumptions that have been considered.

· All TerraWeb applications will be using same technologies so that the interfacing will not be a problem.
· A server exists.
· Users have access to standard browser.
· Direct access to server is available.
· Server has direct access to TerraWeb server (i.e. not going through firewalls).