IWDW-WAQS Technical Committee Intermountain West Data Warehouse Monetization / Cost Recovery

Concept: Suggested by: Introduction… Concept: Implement a mechanism for recovering a portion of the costs incurred from “non cooperator” use of the Data Warehouse. Suggested by: Charis Tuers, Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

Initial Questions: Is it feasible? (Do we have the infrastructure?) Introduction… Initial Questions: Is it feasible? (Do we have the infrastructure?) What do we charge for? What level of time and effort will be required to manage and operate the infrastructure? How much do we charge?

Basic feasibility study CSU has an infrastructure for allowing CSU websites to accept online payments via a basic “shopping cart” framework provided by Colorado.gov Payment processing would be handled by Authorize.net Credit cards from the major card issuers (including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB) could be accepted The “shopping cart” framework could integrate seamlessly into the IWDW website Users would be redirected to Authorize.net for payment processing, much like what happens when you use PayPal There’s a 2.25% transaction fee There’s a flat 75-cent “portal administration fee” per transaction An account to receive the funds would need to be opened

Apportioning the charges What do we charge for? Data download? Bandwidth? Hard drives? Visualization and analysis tools? Pre- or post-processing tools? Data upload? Storage space and data management? Services and support? How do we “package” the charges? Subscription model (annual? monthly? per platform?) Pay-per-use model (what constitutes a “usage scenario”?) How do we programmatically distinguish between cooperator affiliates and non-cooperator users?

Current Service Tiers IWDW User Classes IWDW Services and Features

Possible Future Service Tiers

Monetization of IWDW Services

Data Transfer Disk Transfer – User Disks User provides disks and shipping FTP Most common transfer method Automated (Minimal effort for IWDW admins) Disk Transfer – Warehouse Disks Warehouse provides disks and shipping User returns disks Globus Not yet available Enhancement of FTP Outlook Plausible Pending Globus Implementation

Monetization of IWDW Services

Support IWDW Admin Support Email and Forum responses by IWDW Admins Advanced Support (Modeling Team) Elevated support from modeling team Beyond knowledge of IWDW Admins Outlook: Most support requests enhance platform quality (E.g. missing data, bad configuration, insufficient documenation) Burdensome support should be avoided (E.g. CAMx/CMAQ tutorial, information available in documentation) How to quantify “level of support”? Pending: Quantification of support Additional Personnel?

Monetization of IWDW Services

Tool Access Manage user access to individual web tools Manage platforms available to the user in each tool Free model only provides old platform data in tools E.g. web tools work for 2008b on free model, 2011a/b (current platform) requires subscription Outlook: Per user access to tools - Plausible Per user access to limited platforms in tools – Major effort May be undesirable as tools serve to entice new users Pending Growth of user base Refinement of tools

Monetization of IWDW Services

Technical Development New Tool Development Development of new web tools Ingestion Bring user data to IWDW tools Wiki Space Hosted by IWDW Managed/edited by user AMET Plot Generation Generate collection of MPE plots Not Implemented Outlook: Wiki Space plausible Pending Refinement of IWDW systems Additional personnel

Monetization of IWDW Services

Data Management Archiving Data is stored on disk Offline, not available via Data Request Publication Data is stored on file server Available via Data Request (i.e. has meta data) Immediate Access Data requests are fulfilled without review by stewards group. Outlook Plausible Pending Additional file server (In Progress) Offline disk capacity growth (Continuously In Progress) Archive Data Tracking Policy & Procedure considerations

Monetization of IWDW Services

Other Citation Require some level of subscription in order to cite IWDW data Number of Users Restrict the number of users per subscription Outlook Citation – Plausible but maybe undesirable? Number of Users – Plausible but not many users presently Pending Growth of user base Policy and Procedure considerations re Citation

Current Status

Conclusion Additional goals: Any pricing model needs to be simple and well described The payment system should be as automatic as possible

How much can we expect to recover per unit time? Conclusion Homework: What do we charge for? How much do we charge? How much can we expect to recover per unit time? Is the expected recovery amount worth the time and effort to implement this?