The State's vision for geospatial technology acquisition, development, deployment and management is "enterprise wide" -- providing high quality services available to all of State government and the State's partner organizations. MnGeo's technical coordination responsibilities include identifying service data priorities, coordinating state data investments, developing and promoting the use of data standards, identifying appropriate developers, aggregators and stewards for statewide data assets, and coordinating enterprise solutions for data storage, retrieval and use.
MnGeo negotiated and administers an Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) with Esri for GIS software for State government. This agreement has allowed the 17 participating agencies to save over a million dollars in license fees, enjoy reduced annual maintenance and support costs, as well as to acquire and use current versions of the software. The use of common geospatial software promotes sharing of routines, data and knowledge among state agencies. MnGeo also participated in the negotiations for an Esri Master Purchase Agreement (MPA) that allows state agencies and local governments to acquire and receive discounts on all Esri software products and services.
Much of this involves taking advantage of Service Oriented Architectures that use the internet. Successfully pursuing this vision requires effective coordination among agencies and other organizations that provide component services -- image services, geocoding services, proximity services, query services are examples. MnGeo has designed a Service Cataloging facility to make it easier for organizations to document their technology services and find services cataloged by other organizations that they can use.