NAWIPS – AWIPS II Transition Update

“Where America’s Climate, Weather, Ocean, and Space Prediction Services Begin”

Brent GordonNCEP/NCO/Systems Integration Branch

Unidata Policy/Users CommitteesOctober 15, 2009

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Project Overview• NCEP has ceased all development of its

NAWIPS software system– Bug and emergency fixes being the exception

• Full NAWIPS system to be ported to AWIPS-II• Software ready for Operational Testing and

Evaluation by Q1FY11• No changes to forecaster workflow

– Some visual differences may be unavoidable

• Capitalize on new technology

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Project Overview

• AWIPS-II represents a merging of two software systems - NAWIPS and AWIPS– Will allow for better collaboration between NCEP and

NWS forecasters– Economic benefits as well.

• The combined system will contain components from AWIPS and NAWIPS– NMAP, NCEP Product Generation, GEMPAK, Data

decoders/encoders, D2D, GFE, Hydro Apps, etc.

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Project Overview

• N-AWIPS migration will leverage Raytheon baseline functionality wherever possible– Some functionality implemented directly

• Animation, image manipulation

– Some functionality enhanced• NCEP decoders, Grid diagnostics

• NCEP views this as a software and hardware consolidation

• No NCEP functionality is going away!– No forecaster workflow changes

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Current Status

Transition efforts are on schedule• First Major Release to NCEP Centers and Unidata was

April 1, 2009• Additional releases have been made every 4-8 weeks

– Scheduled to continue up to October 2010 release

• Weekly Telcons with National Centers and Unidata• All NAWIPS applications to be ported by October 1,

2010– Operational Test & Evaluation to begin at that time– National Centers and Unidata involvement

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Current Status

• National Centers (NC) perspective– Continue to work on data management / select– Continue to add data resources as new decoders

become available– Continue to refine existing resources– Working on timeline, time matching, multi-loop,

multi-panel display options

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Current Status

• Product Generation (PGEN)– All basic & compound drawable elements (DEs)– Multi-product, multi-layer– Now focused on products:

• Graph-to-text: TCA, Watches, Outlooks, all SIGMETs, AIRMET, GFA, etc.

• Graph-to-chart: Upper Air, Surface Analysis, DWM, High Seas, etc.

• Graph-to-grid: G2G

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Current Status

• Decoders– Several NCEP specific data decoders now

completed

– Now focusing on:• Imagery

– Satellite (McIDAS), radar (NIDS from Unisys), etc.

• Text

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GEMPAK

• GEMPAK– All current applications to be available in AWIPS-II era– Will no longer require GEMPAK file format – will still support

it• Forward compatibility – GEMPAK DM library access

to AWIPS-II Database• Provides a stop-gap capability for users migrating to

AWIPS-II who run stand-alone GEMPAK applications• Development ongoing now

– SF- and SN-type db requests complete– Gridded db requests next

• Capability will become available with “GEMPAK 6.0” release– Expected in December 2009 release– Delayed from October Target

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Schedule

Oct09 Jan10 Apr10 Jul10 Oct10 Jan11 Apr11 Jul11 Oct11

Oct09 Jan10 Apr10 Jul10 Oct10 Jan11 Apr11 Jul11 Oct11

NCEP Schedule

NWS/RTS Schedule

RTS/NCO Hardware Architecture Defined

NCO – Begin Hardware Procurement

NCO – Begin OTE

NCO – Finish OTE & Hardware Deployment

NCO – Code Package Ready for RTS

NWS –System OTE

NWS – Field OTE

NWS – End DeploymentNWS –

Begin Deployment

NWS – Deploy NCEP Software

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Goals for FY2010

• Major Goals for FY2010– Define National Centers AWIPS II hardware configuration – Establish MOA between NCEP and OST regarding any delta

cost for target hardware– Procure target hardware– Execute NCEP OTE on target hardware– Integrate NCO software into AWIPS II baseline– Define and implement a AWIPS II support model for the National

Centers

• 32 vs 64 bit Issue must be tackled• NCO to adjust to the role of a dev org

– Remove ourselves from hardware and release support

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Other News From NCEP

• Processor Update

• Model Changes

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OCCS Capability

– 69.7 Teraflops Linpack• #36 Top 500 Nov 2008

– 156 Power6 32-way Nodes

– 4,992 processors @ 4.7GHz

– 19,712 gigabytes memory

– 170 terabytes of disk space

– 100 terabyte tape archive

Two Identical IBM Power6 Systems – Operational 25 Aug 2009

Due to budget issues we may not see our next upgrade until 2012-2013 time frame.

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Network Diagram

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NCEP Compute Farm

• Compute capacity available outside of OCCS• Runs smaller scale applications than OCCS

– Possibly used for NSSL WDSS-II Level-II radar data• 30 Blade system – Running VMWare

– 8 cores (processors) per blade– 32 GB Ram per blade (960 GB total)– 36 TB total Disk Space

• Currently at NCEP WWB– Will move to the NCWCP in College Park

• A offsite back-up is being developed in Fairmont, WV at this time

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Upcoming Model Changes

• Moratorium on CCS changes ended in early September 2009

• SREF – 27 Oct – New models – hourly output to 39 hours– http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notification/tin09-29aaasref_upgrad

e.txt

• Ocean Forecast System – 3 Nov – Several Physics upgrades– http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notification/tin09-30rtofs.txt

• NAM – 3 Nov – Several physics upgrades and Bug Fixes– http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notification/tin09-33nam_dgex.txt

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Upcoming Model Changes

• NAM BUFR Soundings – 10 Nov – Several new stations added– http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notification/tin09-26nam_stations.txt

• GFS – 15 Dec – GSI Analysis upgrade w/ new data types – minor changes to forecast – several new parameters to be available– http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notification/tin09-32gfs_changes.txt

• GEFS – 15 Dec – Resolution upgrade T126 to T170 – ESMF – Products to be realigned in files on FTP servers– http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notification/tin09-34gefs.txt

• Future? – A move to model update once per quarter on the CCS

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Upcoming Model Changes

• NCEP model improvement process includes peer review of changes:– Notification of availability of test data for major model upgrades– https://lstsrv.ncep.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/

ncep.list.modelevalinfo

• NCO WEB Site lists upcoming changes– http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/changes/

• Weekly RFC Memo– List of every change to NCO’s IT infrastructure, as well as CCS

and dataflow changes– http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/jifmemo/

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One Final Note

• Brent Gordon is Leaving NCO in Early December

• Will become the Chief of the Space Weather Services Branch at the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder

• Replacement for the Chief of Systems Integration Branch (NAWIPS) at NCO currently unknown