Update on release of NBN Gateway version 5

As we reported in the March issue of eNews, the release of the new NBN Gateway was delayed due to performance issues caused by insufficient capacity on the current servers.  We have now carried out a full assessment of our hardware requirements, and secured the necessary investment to set up dedicated servers that will deliver the required performance and allow capacity for further expansion.  

In the meantime, the development team has been working on some features of the new Gateway that were originally planned to be released in stages after the initial launch, such as the controls for managing access and downloading data.  As a result, when the new hardware has been purchased and set up, we will be able to release Gateway v5 with a fairly complete and fully documented suite of functionality.  

In order to ensure the new system is as user-friendly and intuitive as possible, we have just completed a two-week period of intensive testing of the controls for data access, organisation administration and dataset administration.  The testing was carried out by a group of data providers and users from local environmental records centres, national recording schemes and statutory agencies.  

We are very grateful to these participants for taking the time to review the system so thoroughly – their help has been extremely valuable in ensuring the new Gateway meets user needs.  The group raised over 80 issues, bugs and suggestions for improvements, which were all logged in a tracking system and prioritised.  The majority have already been fixed, and others will be implemented before the launch.

We anticipate releasing version 5 of the NBN Gateway towards the end of 2013, and we will keep you updated on progress.  

Pending the release of the new Gateway, we are continuing to load new and updated datasets onto the current Gateway and the total number of records is now close to 90 million records.  

Please contact us on access@nbn.org.uk if you have any queries – thank you for your patience and continued support.

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