Mass storage for delivery of maps and documents to the field

As service organisations such as the Utilities, Maintenance Companies, and the Police, Rescue and Emergency Services strive to become ever more effective they increasingly seek to apply Information Technology (IT) to their field operations. Historically, service based organisations have evolved electronic information systems as a central office facility, usually commencing with billing systems, progressing to client databases, client history, and command and control systems. In some cases, elaborate map based Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are developed. Mobile field staff must regularly call at the office, often in person, for data and instructions. These office based IT systems are sophisticated and expensive facilities who´s considerable benefits were not usually enjoyed by the field operational personnel. With mounting pressures for greater efficiency a new approach is now emerging, which focuses on cutting fixed costs by reducing conventional office support, and, by devolving (as far as practicable) operational information directly to the field. Mass storage technology will play an increasingly important role as an `enabling technology´ to allow this change to be achieved. This paper discusses some real examples of the practical application of IT in the field, and develops a notional `data availability requirement´ for a typical field mobile worker. From this `data availability requirement´ we proceed to assess the balance between communications (radio) based information delivery and mass storage based delivery. Mass storage, in this context is seen as a wide band but low update rate, communications media