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Geotechnical News December 2010
Geotechnical Instrumentation News
Table 4. Data management
Category
Description
Collection
How secure is data input to the system?
For example is data placed on an FTP site
which the software then imports, or does
the software dial-up individual logger
boxes to collect the data? How is access
managed?
It is important that both raw and
processed data are collected and stored,
even though is unlikely that raw data
would need to be accessed unless a
dispute arises.
Is Manual Data Capture information
readily input and if Remote Data
Capture (RDC) communication links are
temporarily unavailable can manually
collected data from RDC instruments be
readily imported to the system?
Verification It is important that data verification
checks are carried out before the data is
used.
If imported monitoring data is
subsequently determined to be incorrect,
the ability to re-import/reprocess is
an important consideration, without
overwriting data determined to be
incorrect, but being able to flag it as not
for use. Consideration must be given to
storing both raw and processed data.
Processing
Is time to process the data within the
visualisation software affected by the
import system used?
Can the system handle/process the
quantity of data envisaged, and can it
be more focussed when the situation
demands it?
Replication/
Archiving
In some systems, whilst backing-up is
taking place, access to the monitoring
data may not be possible. In this
eventuality a form of data replication will
be required to allow ongoing access to
data. It should go without saying there
needs to be a disaster recovery system in
place.
Table 3. Project/data timescale issues - specific
Category
Considerations
Customisation
For custom software, what
customisation services are
available? As an example, are
simple predictive capabilities
needed/available?
Response Time
(General
Does the software process the data
and then draw from a database
of that processed data, or does it
process on the fly for each query?
What is the typical response time
from time of query to delivery of
results? Do the numbers of system
users affect it at the time?
Response Time
(Data/Volume)
Maintain access to data. Data
quantity may require archiving if
magnitude slows system down too
much, but base information needs to
be retained. Historic (archived) data
may need to be accessed - how is
this accomplished?
article. But, as indicated at the beginning, there is not a
“right” answer for what is required. My intention is to assist
a person who needs instrumentation geotechnical database
management in determining what is important, before
committing to a particular system. If it assists in that aim it
will have served its purpose.
Bibliography
Cook D.K. (1996). Heathrow Express – Settlement Monitor-
ing – Data Collection/Processing, Institution of Civil En-
gineering Surveyors Conference.
Cook D.K and Akbar M.S. (1999). Data Collection and Man-
agement, FMGM, Singapore.
David Cook, Associate Director, Mott MacDonald, Mott
MacDonald House, 8-10 Sydenham Road, Croydon
CR0 2EE, United Kingdom,
Tel +44 (0)208 774 2554,
email
