Phased Migration from CAD to GIS Maintains Currency,

Minimizes Disruption for Georgia Power Company*

By Rich Faglier, Georgia Power Co. & Faye Hall, Senior Software Engineer, Enspiria Solutions, Inc.
*Published in February 2008 issue of ESRI Energy Currents.

When ueoigia Powei Company anu its paient,
Southein Company, weigheu ueployment
options foi a new enteipiise uIS, they ueciueu
on a phaseu implementation. A phaseu
appioach meant maintaining two systems, CAB
anu uIS. Bowevei, auequate iesouices weie not
available to maintain two systems in a timely
fashion. So, in auuition to migiating uata anu
implementing a new enteipiise uIS with new
tools anu inteifaces, staff embaikeu on the
uevelopment of a utility application that woulu
maintain the cuiiency of the uIS uata without
auuitional iesouice iequiiements. This utility
was a uata synchionization tool calleu BWu In.
ueoigia Powei Company is a iegional eneigy
company in the southeastein iegion of the
0niteu States. It pioviues eneigy uistiibution
seivices in 1SS of ueoigia's 1S9 counties to
moie than 2.2 million customeis.
Southein Company ueciueu to implement an
enteipiise uIS baseu on AicuIS anu AicSBE,
with auuitional functionality pioviueu thiough
AicFN anu Besignei 9.1, two tools fiom ESRI
business paitnei Telvent Ninei & Ninei. A new
uata mouel woulu be implementeu to au- uiess
coie business neeus anu facilitate the
implementation of new functionality pioviueu
by Telvent Ninei & Ninei's Besignei piouuct
anu ESRI AicuIS Schematics as well as
auuitional feeuei management anu tiacing
tools.
Piioi to the enteipiise uIS, ueoigia Powei
maintaineu its spatial uata in a customizeu
AutoCAB Nap 6 enviionment anu hau
uevelopeu an extensive libiaiy of tools,
inteifaces, anu piogiams baseu on this
platfoim to meet its opeiational iequiiements.
These softwaie tools, howevei, weie ieaching
the enu of theii life. At the same time, Southein
Company was focusing on a single common
platfoim to ieuuce costs, pioviue a moie iobust
enviionment, anu suppoit a move to a mobile
enviionment. The neeu to move to a new
platfoim was eviuent.
Southein Company anu ueoigia Powei en-
listeu the seivices of Enspiiia Solutions, Inc., a
consulting anu systems integiation fiim anu
ESRI business paitnei baseu in Benvei,
Coloiauo, to aiu in the planning, migiation,
uevelopment, anu ueployment of an enteipiise
uIS enviionment. Foi ueoigia Powei, this
pioject incluueu the migiation of
appioximately 12u,uuu AutoCAB uiawings to
AicSBE; the ueployment of the populateu
AicSBE enteipiise uatabase, an AicuIS
enviionment with custom tools; anu the
ueployment of AicFN anu Besignei solutions.
Inteifaces foi suppoiting outage management,
system analysis, customei linking, anu a Web-
baseu map-viewing platfoim woulu be
uevelopeu.
The uata migiation component of the pioject
was to be peifoimeu ovei a 12-month peiiou.
Resouice levels anu the complexity of the
enviionments, inteifaces, anu tools fuithei
extenueu the amount of time that multiple
systems anu inteifaces woulu have to be
maintaineu. 0nce the scheuule was finalizeu,
anu assuming no uelays, theie woulu be moie
than 18 months between the beginning of uata
migiation anu the completion of the iollout of
the uIS.


Figure 1. Synchronization tool aids CAD-to-GIS
migration process.
ueoigia Powei hau to auuiess migiation
conceins. Bata migiation woulu take seveial
months, uuiing which uata upuates woulu
continue in the CAB enviionment. Also, iegions
woulu not be tiansitioneu to the uIS
enviionment until seveial months aftei
ueployment, when the system inteifaces weie
complete. Finally, the uata migiation
investment neeueu to be piotecteu anu the uata
not alloweu to be- come stale.


To facilitate the tiansition anu auuiess its
conceins, ueoigia Powei analyzeu the
following alteinatives foi maintaining the
cuiiency of its uata:
Bouble posting oi posting upuates to the
existing CAB system anu the new uIS
system
Posting upuates to the uIS, then expoiting
the changes back to CAB
Posting changes to CAB anu impoiting the
changes into the uIS using a custom tool


Aftei uelibeiating anu caiefully consiueiing the
impacts of each stiategy, it was ueciueu that
posting the changes to the CAB enviionment,
then impoiting the changes into the AicSBE
uatabase, was the best appioach. The uata
synchionization tool BWu In was uevelopeu to
maintain the uata in the uIS baseu on euits
maue to the AutoCAB files. Bata euitois in the
S4 iegional opeiating heauquaiteis coulu
maintain the uata in the existing enviionment
until they weie tiaineu anu tiansitioneu to the
new uIS tools.
BWu In was uevelopeu as an application that
coulu be scheuuleu anu iun without usei
inteiaction. It compaies the latest veision of an
AutoCAB file to its pievious veision to
ueteimine which featuies have been inseiteu,
upuateu, oi ueleteu. To limit the impact on the
existing piocesses anu systems, BWu In woulu
be a sepaiate, stanu-alone utility that woulu
iun at a scheuuleu fiequency. An auuitional
utility was uevelopeu that iuentifies anu copies
any files that have been mouifieu to a specific
uiiectoiy. 0sing the changeu files, BWu In
compaies them to anothei set of files. 0nce the
uiffeiences between the two files aie uetecteu,
the iemaining tianslations between the
AutoCAB featuies anu AicSBE featuies aie
peifoimeu. The euits aie wiitten to a veision so
useis can veiify the euits anu post them to
uefault.
BWu In was uevelopeu in Niciosoft's C#
piogiamming language using the Aic0bjects
API, Telvent Ninei & Ninei API, anu the
Featuie Nanipulation Engine (FNE) fiom ESRI
business paitnei Safe Softwaie. The C#
application manages the tianslation of each
AutoCAB file anu hanules any eiiois iaiseu by
the tianslation piocess. Bue to the
ielationships between the featuies, both spatial
anu attiibute uata, sepaiate tianslations aie
peifoimeu so ielationships aie cieateu
coiiectly. Foi example, when anchoi featuies
that snap to poles aie tianslateu, the pole is
wiitten to the AicSBE uatabase fiist so an
anchoi can then snap to it. Baseu on the
featuies anu ielationships, BWu In peifoims
foui sepaiate tianslations.
An obstacle in ueveloping the BWu In
application was that Safe Softwaie's FNE
piouuct uiu not wiite AicSBE netwoik featuies.
The ueoigia Powei uata mouel containeu an
electiic netwoik with many netwoik featuies
maintaineu in the CAB enviionment. To woik
aiounu this, these featuies weie postpiocesseu
using FNE to tiansfei them to a peisonal geo-
uatabase. A custom tool was then useu to move
them fiom the peisonal geouatabase to the
AicSBE uatabase.
Similaily, AicFN auueu extensions to each
featuie anu object class in the uata mouel that
alloweu custom coue anu Auto0puatei to be
executeu whenevei a featuie oi object was
mouifieu. The featuies anu objects weie
wiitten to AicSBE thiough the FNE tianslatoi
using the Aic0bjects API iathei than thiough
the AicCatalog oi AicNap inteiface. The
Telvent Ninei & Ninei extensions faileu
because a Telvent Ninei & Ninei license hau
not been appiopiiately checkeu out. Initially, a
custom FNE ieauei was wiitten to check out a
Telvent Ninei & Ninei license so the ieauing
anu wiiting of the featuies fiom the AicSBE
uatabase coulu occui, invoking an eiioi uialog.
Bowevei, a Niciosoft patch ieleaseu in }uly
2uu6 iesulteu in the FNE tianslation uisplaying
a memoiy iefeience eiioi at the enu of eveiy
tianslation. Since BWu In ian as a seivice, theie
was no way foi a usei to iesponu to the uialog
boxes, so BWu In woulu be on holu until
someone cleaieu the uialog boxes.


Figure 2. Potential conflicts are automatically
logged for review and correction.
In auuition, it was not possible to contiol
custom Auto0puatei fiom within FNE ieaueis
they coulu be uisableu anu faileu to
consistently fiie. The custom Auto0puatei was
not wiitten foi execution fiom a stanu-alone
application. In many cases, it was assumeu that
AicNap woulu be iunning when the custom
coue was executeu, but this assumption
iesulteu in, among othei issues, eiioi message
boxes being uisplayeu. As with the pievious
license issues, with no usei to iesponu to these
eiioi uialog boxes, BWu In woulu go on holu
until someone was able to cleai the uialog
boxes.
It then was ueciueu that using a postpiocessoi
to move the simple featuies fiom a tempoiaiy
peisonal geouatabase to the AicSBE uatabase
woulu help solve many of the issues. An empty
peisonal geouatabase was uevelopeu with the
same uata mouel as the AicSBE uatabase
except it uiu not have a netwoik anu none of
the Telvent Ninei & Ninei extensions weie
applieu to it. Noie columns weie auueu to each
featuie anu object class so the postpiocessoi
was awaie of the type of tiansaction to be
peifoimeu with the featuie.

By using the peisonal geouatabase with a
postpiocessoi, the FNE tianslations no longei
iequiieu a geouatabase wiitei to access the
uatabase. This alloweu the geouatabase ieauei
to be changeu to an AicSBE ieauei that uses
AicSBE to access the featuies iathei than the
Aic0bjects API. Because featuies weie now
being ieau fiom the uatabase, a custom FNE
ieauei was not neeueu anu any pioblems with
AicFN licenses weie avoiueu. As an auueu
bonus, this change iesulteu in a 66 peicent
impiovement in the peifoimance of BWu In.
Files that hau been taking 2u minutes to
piocess weie being piocesseu in less than 7
minutes. Anothei impoitant uesign
consiueiation was the ability to log
inconsistencies oi issues so that coiiections
coulu be maue. With moie than 1uu featuie
classes being upuateu by BWu In baseu on
euits in a ielatively foigiving enviionment, it
was possible that a tianslation coulu fail uue to
an invaliu uata type. 0thei possible issues
aiose when people moveu oi ueleteu featuies


in the AicSBE uatabase without iealizing the
impact of these changes on BWu In.
Foitunately, the new uata mouel pioviueu the
ability to ueteimine if anu when the featuie
was mouifieu so that potential conflicts coulu
be loggeu foi ieview. Log files, potential conflict
files, faileu featuies, anu unmatcheu shapefiles
weie cieateu to pioviue useis anu
auministiatois with the ability to investigate
potential pioblems anu coiiect issues
efficiently.
BWu In was ueployeu in 0ctobei 2uu6 in the
ueoigia Powei piouuction enviionment only
aftei stiingent testing. Noie than 1,7uu
veisions have been posteu to the piouuction
uatabase thiough BWu In. New piocesses,
baseu on the numbei of euits, valiuation tools,
anu spot checks, have been implementeu to
ensuie uata quality.
The BWu In pioject has been a success. It
enableu ueoigia Powei to maintain the
cuiiency of its uata in the uIS uuiing the 18-
month migiation piocess without the expense
of auuitional iesouices. Fuithei, BWu In
ieuuces cost anu iesouice impacts that woulu
iesult fiom a uelay in scheuule.









About the authors
Rich Fagliei is a uistiibution suppoit
supeivisoi at ueoigia Powei Co. Be has been
at ueoigia Powei foi moie than 2S yeais.
Buiing that time, he has woikeu in the
engineeiing anu test sections at Plant
NcBonough anu has been in the inuustiial
maiketing anu uistiibution uepaitments. Be
moveu to the uistiibution suppoit uepaitment,
wheie he woiks with new technology stiategy,
uevelopment anu ueployment. Fagliei has a
BSNE uegiee fiom ueoigia Tech anu is a
membei of both the Society of Nechanical
Engineeis anu uITA.
Faye Ball ieseaiches, uesigns anu uevelops
softwaie systems to integiate legacy
applications with uIS. Bei 1u yeais of
consulting anu system integiation expeiience
have incluueu utilities anu public-sectoi woik.
Bei backgiounu also incluues engineeiing
expeiience in the manufactuiing inuustiy as
well as softwaie uesign anu uevelopment
expeiience in the telecommunications anu
iailway tianspoitation inuustiies. She holus a
bacheloi's uegiee in systems uesign
engineeiing fiom the 0niveisity of Wateiloo,
Canaua.