Java-Based SONRIS Application Leverages ArcIMS, ArcInfo

Louisiana Department of Natural Resources Builds Landmark Web Site

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has built a Web portal with GIS called Strategic Online Natural Resources Information System or SONRIS/2000 (pronounced "sunrise two thousand") (www.SONRIS.com) to provide access to millions of records, maps, and well logs on its more than 200,000 oil and gas properties.

According to Rizwan Ahmed, director of information technology, Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, the Web site's success is international; to date, users from more than 20 different countries have accessed the site. "We have users from different countries, and we have all types of diverse Businesses, both large and small, looking at our information," says Ahmed.

The mission of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources is to preserve and enhance the nonrenewable natural resources of the State, consisting of land, water, oil, gas, and other minerals, through conservation, regulation, and management/exploitation, to ensure that the State of Louisiana realizes appropriate economic benefits from its asset base.

DNR exercises complex and various regulatory and permitting functions through the offices of Conservation, Mineral Resources, and Coastal Restoration and Management. The department serves as one of State government's major revenue-generating agencies by way of oil and gas bonuses, rentals, and royalties.

For many of DNR's fundamental tasks, GIS technology was a perfect fit. At DNR, there are three levels of GIS users. There are professional-level GIS users in the IT division. These users work with ArcInfo for high-end, robust GIS applications. Within all four DNR offices there are power users that work with ArcView GIS and, in some cases, ArcInfo as well. The third group of users run custom applications built using MapObjects. These applications allow users to edit, query, and visualize oil and gas information such as natural gas fields, lease outlines, accumulated production, etc.

Over the years, DNR had built a significant database of spatial and georelated information; strategists at the DNR used a Business plan approach to maintain existing customers and to capture new customers through long-range planning strategies. Its key weapon: information.

According to Ahmed, it was the Business mentality of the DNR that led to the success of the implementation. "We tried to take a more Businesslike approach; we wanted to think aggressively about how we could serve our customers—private citizens—better," says Ahmed. "And the development of technology was in the right place for us to meet our goals."

The result of this development effort was SONRIS, which was written in Java and runs on the Oracle DBMS platform. In addition, SONRIS employs the Oracle Designer and the Oracle Jinitiator. Designer is a visual rapid application development tool that is tightly integrated with the Oracle Database engine, while Jinitiator includes a Java run-time environment for Java support.

For the GIS component of the application, SONRIS uses ArcInfo 8, with ArcSDE running on Oracle, and ArcIMS for Web GIS. And because ArcIMS components work with Java also, ArcIMS easily integrates with the Java-based Web site developed by DNR.

According to Bo Blackman, GIS manager, DNR, the major improvement over previous methods is that using ArcInfo 8 on PCs, which all DNR users have to access non-GIS data, allows DNR professionals to migrate from more costly, legacy UNIX workstations. DNR intends to switch exclusively to ArcInfo 8 on Windows NT or MS2000 platforms. DNR will be running approximately 30-35 licenses of ArcInfo 8 for Windows NT when this effort is completed.

With 600 forms, 100 reports, 600 tables, and an estimated 50 million documents, the hefty SONRIS database makes 100 GB of data available to users.

Users can select a map, zoom in to an area of interest, select an oil well, and view land ownership information, well capacity, and other data. They can then perform a more refined search to view lease documents and other data, which will launch another Business application. Users don't know that different applications are being launched; they only see what they need: the requested information.

For more information, contact Rizwan Ahmed, director of Information Technology, Louisiana DNR (e-mail: RIZWANA@dnr.state.la.us).

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