The Implementation Team and the Microsoft Bay Area Research Center contracted to perform a feasibility study for a 1 TB online (i.e. all-disk) Web-accessible database. The feasibility study, completed in January 1997, demonstrated a 30 GB Web-accessible image database supported entirely by Microsoft software (Windows NT Server, Internet Information Server, SQL Server, Internet Explorer). The Implementation Team prepared the database content (USGS digital orthophoto quadrangles) and advised Microsoft on database schema and user interface issues.
Following the successful demonstration of the 30 GB database, work has begun on the 1 TB version. Microsoft has currently committed $64K (plus an addtional $8K software and documentation) and loaned a Digital Alphaserver system running Windows NT to UCSB, to help prepare a large portion of the 1 TB dataset.
Microsoft intends for the 1 TB system to be a showcase for Microsoft software in a very large-scale data management environment, using content of sufficiently broad appeal to compel a large Web audience. Under ADL's guidance, content is also being selected that will be useful to a geo-spatial data library, both in its own right, and as a frame dataset for the user interface. For these reasons ADL and Microsoft have agreed that digital orthophoto quadrangles and high-resolution Russian satellite imagery will be the primary datasets used to achieve a 1 TB load.
Following its initial demonstration in May 1997, ADL intends to host the 1 TB system at UCSB and operate it both as a showcase for Microsoft and as the kernel of the operational version of ADL.