Evolution of Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS): AWIPS II Migration

and Vision for the Next Decade

30th AMS Conference on Environmental Information Processing Technologies

February 4, 2014

Ronla Henry, AWIPS Program ManagerDr. Mike Farrar, Chief, Program Management Branch

NOAA/NWS, Office of Science and Technology

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Outline

• AWIPS Overview

• AWIPS II Migration

• Vision for the future

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AWIPS OverviewWhat is AWIPS?

AWIPS is the NOAA/NWS cornerstone IT system used to

ingest, analyze, forecast, & disseminate operational weather

data, including time-sensitive, high-impact warnings to protect

life and property ….. 24/7/365

Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS)

AWIPS OverviewAWIPS Locations

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AWIPS OverviewScope & IT Footprint

• Network Control Facility (NCF) operations– 24/7 Helpdesk, trouble shooting, repair, HW/SW installation support,

continuous monitoring, and security patching

– AWIPS Communications

• Satellite Broadcasting Network (SBN): 30Mbps satellite broadcast network; primary and backup Master Ground Station plus 167 site ground stations

• LAN: IPv6 ready; Managed by AWIPS NCF

• WAN: Private VPN over NOAANet (not part of AWIPS contract)

• Hardware Maintenance & Refresh– 172 systems at 150 sites; over 3500 servers and workstations;

hundreds of routers, firewalls, storage arrays and network switches

• Software Maintenance and Support– 8 million of lines of AWIPS I code under CM control

– 8 million lines of AWIPS II code under CM control• Includes 2 million lines of code for legacy applications

• Configuration Management– AWIPS Configuration Control Board reviews and authorizes all

Requests for Change to the AWIPS IT enterprise

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AWIPS OverviewEvolution of AWIPS

Extend Unified Baseline & Continue

Functional Improvement

AWIPS AWIPS IIMigration

AWIPS II Extended

and S&T Infusion

Port Functionality to Flexible Architecture

• Late 80s - early 90s: AWIPS I developed to replace AFOS system- AFOS = Automation of Field Operations and Services (AFOS)

• 1997: AWIPS I deployed• 2004: NWS review identified AWIPS software as major obstacle to

meeting future mission requirements– Costly to maintain; Challenging to infuse new science and applications

• 2006: NWS executed contract option for AWIPS II-related projects• 2011: AWIPS II Field OTE began• 2012-2015: AWIPS II migration to National Centers and field offices

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AWIPS II MigrationObjectives

• Objectives: Migrate existing AWIPS capabilities to a modern, robust Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) in order to:– Unify stove piped applications into single framework– Improve maintainability & stability via streamlined, extensible software– Reduce maintenance costs– Speed infusion of research to operations– Improve public weather forecast accuracy and timeliness

• Metrics for success: Migration of legacy to SOA expected to bring measureable benefits:– Reduce time to transition from 18 months to 9 months – Reduce software development time for new products by 50%– Increase software release frequency from 2 to 4 per year

AWIPS II MigrationAWIPS II Software Re-Architecture Approach

• Perform “black-box” conversion of AWIPS I functions to AWIPS II– Preserve existing functionality, “look and feel” on top of new Services

Oriented Architecture (SOA) infrastructure• Thorough field validation and acceptance before deployment

– Forecaster initial testing sessions; continuing/expanding in next phase• No loss of functionality

– Deployed system current with deployed AWIPS capability• Use open source projects - No proprietary code

– JAVA, PostGres, Qpid, Pypyies, Eclipse devel. environment, etc.• Objective is to make AWIPS II the platform for collaborative development

with public, private, academic and international weather communities– Added useful functionality– Portable code base– No license fees; No copyright – Source code available to collaborators– Common development environment available to collaborators

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AWIPS II Migration Current Deployment Status (as of Jan 2014)

• AWIPS II currently supporting operations at:– 16 (of 122) local Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs)– 13 (of 13) regional River Forecast Centers (RFCs)– 6 (of 6) national-level NCEP center sites– 6 (of 6) NWS Regional Headquarters

• WFO deployment timeline – Group 1 complete; exited 30-day stability test on Nov 7, 2013– Group 2 operational, now undergoing testing – Under the schedule in the current Activation Agreement, remaining

WFO deployments will continue in groups of 8-10 WFOs– Last group scheduled to be completed by 4Q FY2015

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AWIPS II MigrationIncremental Tech Infusion Approach

• AWIPS II Extended Projects are implemented as on-going, pre-planned, major infrastructure enhancements

– Each project provides an incremental technology infusion to be built on the foundation of the AWIPS II infrastructure

• Major AWIPS II Extended projects include: – Thin Client capability to enable AWIPS remote access from any location, critical

for support to CWSUs at FAA sites, Decision Support Services [such as Incident Meteorologists (IMETs)], Continuity of Ops (COOP), etc.

• Final Operational Capability achieved in 2013– Smart Push/Pull technologies to enable AWIPS to handle increased data

volumes assoc. with major new initiatives (e.g., GOES-R, higher res. models)– Real-time collaboration among NWS operators and with NWS partners– Streamlined hazards services information generation dissemination and access

for partners to support Impact-based Decision Support Services (IDSS)– Transition of NCEP-AWIPS (N-AWIPS) into AWIPS II to integrate capabilities

between field and national offices leading to more efficient services and consolidation of hardware and software baselines

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Vision for FutureContinuations from current Contract

• Basic contract structure:– O&M contract to operate/maintain system across National enterprise; continue

approach of building towards stable and predictable O&M costs

– Product Improvement contract to provide upgrades (e.g., Extended Projects)

• Continued focus on operational reliability/performance, security, cost effectiveness, customer support

• Continued system evolution to meet evolving requirements, as well as to meet Dept. Commerce, NOAA and NWS Strategic Objectives:

– DOC: http://www.osec.doc.gov/bmi/budget/DOCFY11-16StrategicPlan%20_508version.pdf

– NOAA: http://www.ppi.noaa.gov

– NWS: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/weatherreadynation

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Vision for Future*Potential Changes with New Contract

• In addition to O&M of current WFOs, RFC, NCEP and HQs, may potentially add O&M for new AWIPS II systems at:

– Tsunami Warning Centers (2) in Alaska and Hawaii– Central Weather Service Units (CWSUs) located at 21 FAA sites

• Implement and maintain a distributed Configuration Management (CM) environment that supports “collaborative” and agile software development between the Contractor, NWS, and other development partners

– The Offeror may propose their own solution, or implement/adapt an existing collaborative environment, such as the NWS Virtual Lab (for more detail, see the following URL: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/vlab/)

• Architecture change that maximizes efficiencies, improves data latency, and minimizes communications bandwidth requirements for using and manipulating large 4-dimensional datasets within the AWIPS system, such as gridded model data and the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD)

• Changes to AWIPS hardware architecture (plus required software changes) to maximize efficiencies and create long-term O&M savings, while minimizing operational risks and required up-front investment

* This subset of potential changes are under consideration only. NO final decisions have been made

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AWIPS Points of ContactNWS Office of Science & Technology

Mike Farrar (Chief, Program Management Branch)Michael.Farrar@noaa.gov

Ronla Henry (AWIPS Program Manager)Ronla.Henry@noaa.gov

Mark Miller (Acquisition Lead for new AWIPS contract)Mark.B.Miller@noaa.gov

Website to download AWIPS II code + technical library for new contracthttps://collaborate2.nws.noaa.gov/partners/

Back-up slidesAWIPS Hardware/Network diagrams

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Current AWIPS Hardware Footprint at WFO

DX3

PX1

NAS

DX2DX4

PX2

DAS

AX LS2LS3

AWIPS II Rack 1 AWIPS II Rack 2 AWIPS II Rack 3 AWIPS II Rack 4

CPSBN1 CPSBN2

DX1

UPS UPS UPS UPS

Router-1 Switch-1 Switch-2Power Strip Power StripPower Strip

Power Strip Power Strip Power Strip Power Strip

UPS UPS UPS UPS

Power Strip

Router-2

Current AWIPS Hardware ArchitectureCONUS WFO configuration

Current AWIPS Hardware Architecture OCONUS WFO configuration

Current AWIPS Hardware Architecture RFC configuration

Current AWIPS Hardware Architecture National Center configuration