Report on Architecture Management Group's Quarterly Meeting

Although somewhat delayed because of the furlough, the NIH Architectural Management Group (AMG) held its regular quarterly meeting on March 6, 1996. The meeting produced three key decisions:

New Working Group On Web

A new AMG working group will address Web technology. Web client software, such as Netscape and Microsoft browsers, has become widespread at NIH. Because this software provides a standardized tool for accessing and manipulating graphical and textual information, it can play a significant role in the deployment of client/server applications—a universal graphical user interface. Thus, it seems appropriate to incorporate Web-derived standards into the AMG-recommended architecture.

AMG Recommendations Will Cover Desktop Configuration

The AMG reached an agreement on expanding architecture recommendations to encompass desktop configuration. A working group will address this important, yet controversial, topic and report back at the annual AMG retreat scheduled for June 13.

Home Page Established for AMG

The AMG reached agreement on a home page design for the AMG. You can find it at

http://www.nih.gov/science/computers/amg science/computers/amg

The home page contains links to much AMG information, including the report of AMG's March 6th meeting.

In the AMG Quarterly, Vol. 2.1 (March 1996), a compelling editorial sets forth some of the tenets addressed by AMG, as it struggles to decide upon information technology standards to recommend to the ICDs.

See it on the Web!

Interface 196 (June 15, 1996)