1. Current Uses of Computers in UK Business and Industry
Kevin J Needham
Met Office
20th November 2001

2. The Talk Who am I What is the Met Office? The Weather Machine!
Some IT Challenges
The Future
Summary
Questions

3. I.e. a Bit of..... History - what done/learned Now - what doing
Future - where going

4. I was asked to
Show how computers enhance the performance of business users.
You will see that "The Met Office needs IT like a fish needs water.”
CAN YOU READ THIS OK???

5. Who am I? - why should I be here talking to you?
Kevin J Needham
Project and Programme Management and IT Training Programme Manager at the Met Office College in Reading
Been with Met. Office 21 Years from Research, Training, Strategy, Y2K etc

6. My Experience Most recent past - Project 2000 -
Deputy Project Manager Stage 1-3
Testing & Technical Information Manager
Y2K Business Continuity Manager for Government Departments (PMS, DHSS, DETR, Home Office etc)
Future - IT?/Met?/????

7. What can we do today? Barely scratch the surface
It will be “fast and furious”
Give you a flavour
Leave you wanting to know more?
Tell you where to find it!!

8. Rules if engagement WARNING Laugh at the “Jokes” or they get worse!!!!
We have a lot to get through, so Please leave questions to the end
In the unlikely event of you going to sleep - PLEASE DON’T SNORE zzzzzz
WARNING Laugh at the “Jokes” or they get worse!!!!

9. The Met Office - what do we do?
TV forecasts?? BBC & ITV
Newspapers??
CEEFAX
The Weather programme
BUT WHAT ELSE?
The above is less than 1% of our business

10. A few vital Statistics As of March 2001..... 147 years old
Trading Fund

11. History of Met Office
Established Meteorological Dept. Of the Board of Trade.
Became Meteorological Office
Separate Met. For each armed force.
Part of Air Ministry
Became MOD

12. History of Met Office 1990 (April 2) Next Steps Executive Agency
1993 First Charter
1996(April 1) Trading Fund
Met Office run as a business.

13. A Business? Continued and proven improvements in Quality of service
Greater flexibility
Sustained improvement for less money
Reduction in staff - increased use automation

14. What’s in a Brand?
When you see this logo - what do you associate with us?
November 2000 “The Met.Office became

15. Why? The Odyssey Project (1998) examined scenarios of our future.
Key outcome - to widen our horizons - moving the ‘Met Office’ to becoming the nation’s key provider in the wider field of natural environmental services such as hydrology and oceanography, not just ‘weather’.

16. Why?
To become a key player in development of European meteorological collaboration.
Fully embrace internet, its emerging technologies and the huge potential of e-commerce.
Did our old Brand say all this???
Does our new one???

17. Brand & IT New templates for fax, letter, web, etc
Machine ready brand, logo etc
Revamped Web site
All products re-badged
All customer systems rebadged
All on a single day to maintain the impact…..

18. Competitors - do we have them?
YES!!! - lots of them
In Strategic “arms length” business unit - to compete on a level playing field
“Buy” services from the Met. Office
Same services provided to competitors - same charges

19. DPDS Data & Products Distribution Service
Set up 4 years ago to provide our competitors with “push” or “pull” data and products via internet
European and world wide
Ahead of its time
Continually improved

20. A few vital Statistics As of March 2001..... 147 years old
Trading Fund
Staff
Directors 10 (plus CE)
7 Executive, 3(4) non executive

21. Our Management Board But what about IT? Peter Ewins - CE
Paul Mason - Chief Scientist
Colin Flood - Operations Director
Roger Hunt PS Business Director
Jim Caughey - Technical Director
Philip Mabe - Finance Director
Martin Sands - Company Secretary
Stephen Lawrenson - Commercial MD
MO Board above + 3/4 Non Exec
But what about IT?

22. “Divisional Structure” - “Matrix work” moving towards a Process Based structure

23. Staff MOD Civil servants & contractors
Split 50/50 between R&D/support/sales and forecasting
Scientists & Admin - single grade structure
Competency based assessment of posts, skills and achievement

24. Staff vs Computers Staff 1970 3500 1980 2750 1990 2500 1996 2138
2001 ????
Computers
1970 2
2000 ?????

25. A few vital Statistics As of March 2001..... 147 years old
Trading Fund
Staff
Directors 11 (inc CE)
100 UK Sites( + Overseas)

26. Bracknell Sites HQ - NMC, Ops. Centre, Admin Development, Library
Sutton -Business
Johnson -Business Systems
Hadley -Climate Research
Scott -Marine & Archives
P Duffryn-Relocation, HR & Services
Beaufort Park - Experimental Site
Simpson - Stores & Contracts

27. Other Sites Met O College - Reading Met Research Unit - Cardington
Met Research Flight - Farnborough
JCMM - Reading University
RSI - Farnborough
regional Weather Centres in main cities - inc London, Cardiff, Manchester…..

28. also Port Met Offices ADAS MAFF Lighthouses RAF - UK
Navy, ARMY RANGES, Airports
Local Councils, Auxilliaries etc
And that’s just the UK!

29. Overseas All RAF bases overseas All military operations overseas
Mobile unit
Other bases
Cyprus, Falklands
Dependent on ALL other met services in ALL other countries in peace and war.

30. Defence outstations Key: Subsidiary Forecast Office MAIN MET. OFFICE
Lossiemouth
Key:
South Uist
Kinloss
Subsidiary Forecast Office
MAIN MET. OFFICE
Leuchars
Observing Office
Principal Forecast Office
West Freugh
Leeming
Eskmeals
Dishforth
Linton-on-Ouse
Valley
WADDINGTON
Coningsby
Cranwell
Cottesmore
Coltishall
Shawbury
Marham
Wittering
Aberporth
Wattisham
HQSTC
BRIZE NORTON
Northolt
Shoeburyness
Lyneham
Benson
Larkhill
Odiham
Manston
Boscombe Down
Boscombe Down
Middle Wallop
St. Mawgan
1 March 1997

31. Defence outstations overseas
Gibraltar
Akrotiri
Germany
Gütersloh
Laarbruch
Brüggen
HQ 2 GP (RAF)
Ascension
Island
Falkland
Islands
Main Met. Office
Area Met. Office
Subsidiary Forecasting Office

32. Mobile Met. Unit (MMU)

33. With all the tech, pilots still trust the Forecaster with their lives!!!

34. Rainfall Sites

35. Basic “Manned” Land Stations

36. A few vital Statistics As of March 2001..... 147 years old
Trading Fund
Staff
Directors 11 (inc CE)
100 UK Sites( + Overseas)
Turnover ?

37. Money? Turnover: - £154M Expenditure:- £150M Operating Profit:- £4M
ROCE 2.8% = In profit

38. Where does the money come from?

39. The Met. Office Multi-functional organisation MOD owned
Responsible to Government
Has diverse responsibilities
Is a world-wide and world-class organisation
24 hour, 365/6 days operation

40. Met Office
Our Vision: Through unrivalled know-how, to enable individuals, society and enterprises everywhere to make the most of the weather and the natural environment.

41. Met Office This all requires VERY effective use of IT Our Goals:
To lead the world in advice on weather and the natural environment.
To make the Met. Office a source of pride to our staff, our owner, and the public.
This all requires VERY
effective use of IT

42. The Met. Office is: Accountable Chartered Investor in People
TARGETS set and measured by NAO
eg 84% accuracy general forecast
Chartered
Investor in People

43. Gosh, that was really interesting!

44. The Talk - where are we? The Weather Machine! Who am I
What is the Met Office?
The Weather Machine!
Some IT Challenges
The Future
Summary
Questions

45. So how does the Met. Office operate?

46. The Weather machine Verification R&D Transmission
Support & Infrastructure
Observations
Prepare and give Product to Customer
Input to Model
Interpret
Forecast

47. Observations Many types Methods Second, event, hourly… Yearly…
Surface, Upper air, satellite, Buoys, Ships, Aircraft, Radar, spherics
Methods
Manual - Met & auxilliary
automatic
Semi Automatic
Second, event, hourly… Yearly…
World-wide -co-operation
Future!!
Why need
observers?
Why not
fully
automate???

48. Buoy Network - early warning system

50. Observations Coded - alpha/numeric World wide agreed standard (WMO)
achievement in itself!!
Language independent
World wide recognition!!
Continually changing - software changing!!!!
WMO
At GMT worldwide - 365/6 days - 24 hours
Surface, Upper air, satellite, radar… War and peace

51. Code example

52. Automatic Observations
SAMOS - Semi Automatic Observing System
Still some elements difficult to automate - eg cloud cover BUT we are using remote TV cameras

53. One Reason to Automate

58. Measuring Visibility

59. The Weather machine Verification R&D Transmission
Support & Infrastructure
Observations
Prepare and give Product to Customer
Input to Model
Interpret
Forecast

60. Think of the number of Obs in an hour!!!
How cope with this amount of data
Global Network
GTS - joint owned and funded
Largest private network
Moving to ftp
Radio to satellite

62. Number of Obs One timezone Upper air Limited lifetime.
individual observations used in 24 hours.
Upper air
radiosonde
pressure, temp.,humidity, wind
2300+ observations

63. Number of Obs Satellites
Polar Orbiting & Geo-stationary
43000 observations
Ships, Aircraft, Buoys etc (automated and manual - collecting platforms)

64. Number of Obs Radar Data Others - eg Spherics (lightning)
Heavy reliance on technology
GTS, Observing & reception systems, Message switching etc

65. Radar systems - data & forecasts direct to users and customers in real time - Warnings of Flooding, erosion etc

66. Radar

67. Co-funded satellite programmes - only as good as calibration & verification data

69. New Satellites Magnitudes more data More Instruments More calibration
Greater resolution
Storage and transmission Challenges!
(We also build and test the satellite instruments)

70. Global Networks Global Observations are Key to modern Met.
WMO maintains framework for international exchange
Bracknell one of several Hubs on GTS.
- Tropics - 100s Thousands bulletins and products to customers and other Met Centres from few K to many Gbytes.

71. Tropics -Tandems 4 Highly resilient fault tolerant K1000 systems
input 200K messages
output 2.5Million msgs
Chars/day I/P 800Mbyte O/P 3300Mbyte
Peak 15mins I/P 9000 msgs O/P msgs
12 processors Paired mirrored disks 80Gbyte
192 in/out channels
+ Backup system. - continually upgraded!!

73. Tropics in the future?

74. Tropics in the future? PC/workstation based
In-built redundancy - increased tolerance
Standard technology - less specialists
Cost much less to buy/maintain/upgrade
Meets greater pull demands for products

75. The Weather machine Verification R&D Transmission
Support & Infrastructure
Observations
Prepare and give Product to Customer
Input to Model
Interpret
Forecast

76. Brief History Computing
Richardson 1922
Desktop Computer 1950s
EDSAC - Cambridge UNIV for LYONS (LEO) - paper tape-mercury storage lines
Ferranti Mark I - Manchester - Storage Cathode Ray - simple models
Ferranti Mercury (METEOR) - Valve Storage -Dunstable to Bracknell Printers, paper tape 3 level model

77. Ferranti Mercury “Console”

78. The Move !

79. Brief History (2)
IBM/ level model - disks and tape, programs from disk, 24hr forecasts 70 mins, programmer training, punched cards input.

80. Brief History (2)
IBM/ level model - disks and tape, programs from disk, 24hr forecasts 70 mins, programmer training, punched cards input.
IBM 370/158 - gave backup, TSO, links to outside world in >1000 jobs per day.
Cray at ECMWF
Cyber 205 Bracknell - 400Mflops, Vector Pgming, fed by IBM

81. The CYBER 205

82. History Computing (3) 1980s - Various upgrades to front end mainframe
more disks, tapes, reduced use cards, film and plotted output.
ETA MFLops - Flopped.....
Late 80s/90s - succession Crays
Early 90s HDS Mainframe
Today

83. Computers and the Met
“The Met Office does not just use, it abuses computers….”
“If you want someone to get 120% out of a computer - it’s the Met Office”
“The Met Office makes computers do things it wasn’t designed to - and do it well…..”
“They get every ounce out of them..”

84. IBM 9672-R45 Installed October 1998 4 CPUs (scalar) 3 Gb Memory
Performance 61 MIPS/CPU
2.3 Kilowatts
Weight 0.1 Tons
O/S 390

85. IBM 9672-R45
“Workhorse”
Front end Processor & data handler - 200K Jobs per month
Controls Grau Tape Robot and Front end disks.
Feeds and clears up after Supercomputer!!
Acts as ftp and intranet site
Holds corporate software, backups and databases

87. IBM Runs Terminal network (IBM 3270 emulation) MVS, UNIX FORTRAN
4 Logical Partitions
Operational
Development
Test
UNIX
Managed 24 hours/365

88. Second IBM
With amount of data handling, system “slow” at certain times - eg forecast production!
Second IBM installed to provide backup and alleviate hot period
Support for CRAY twins! (more later)

89. Second IBM IBM 9672 R25 Smaller version of original
Avoided Licensing issues (by MIP)
3 months buy - installation
Runs all forecast output - greater consistency for Forecasts
Releases R45 for use by rest of Office

90. Future of the mainframe?
Distributed UNIX functional systems - September 2001
Prevent maintenance of MVS system architectures & legacy languages eg JCL
Greater use of Proprietary Database (Met created its own in 70s, as until recently nothing suitable - now ORACLE)
Will it have its place??
How do we convert?

91. T3E Massively Parallel Processor
Oct 96 - april 97 (extended)
support (clock speed 450Mhz)
each PE - 128mb (8 have 256)
1152Gb
900Mflops per PE
Liquid
Date of Installation
Number Processors elements (PEs)
Local Mem size
Disk Storage
Peak performance
Cooling

92. T3E Massively Parallel Processor
Power consumption KWh
Total weight tons
Operating system - UNICOS/mk
Backup generators for operational areas

93. Second CRAY
Because of volume of work require a second CRAY T3E recently installed and accepted 1999
Mhz
Most 256MB
Total - 1,500 Billion calculations per second….
Also “Baby” test T3E

94. Second CRAY Used for Numerical weather prediction & Climate research
To keep ahead of our competitors
Enhanced models
Overall upgrade by 80% even though 25% fewer processors they run faster

95. T3E Massively Parallel Processor
Replaced Cray 90 once all code converted and tested in parallel at least 5 times faster.
Much of code had to be rewritten to make most use of parallel processors - data exchange....
Connected via Ethernet
Change from few fast expensive CPUs to many small cheap RISK based.
Where to store
all this data?

96. Future of Super Computing
Has to be parallel
Greater speed of processors
Less cost
More memory
LINUX based PC chips?
Fewer companies
Distributed by function?

97. GRAU tape Robot Installed July 1993
5 Towers = bar-coded cartridges
Two Robots
200 mounts /hour
High availability
17.5million Chars/Sec to IBM
250Million to/from Cray (superlink)
Job of two staff -No tea breaks

98. A Few Statistics 1981 - 10K 1600bpi tapes 1985 - 20K 6250bpi tapes
K 18 & 36 Track Cartridges - Approx 21.1 Tbytes
Now growing at 100+ bytes year
Tbytes??
Tbytes??
Current MF Disk Capacity GB RAID - HSM

99. Future - Mass Storage
Replacing ageing Grau with File Tek MASS storage system
Forecast well over a Peta Byte (thousand Tera Bytes by 2005
Use for all storage and backups?
Automated high capacity tape cartridge silos - dedicated computer system
Where to now???

100. Why Need Such Storage Hi Speed Computers = Hi Res Models = more data
Ongoing Archive of info
Operational Backup
Climate Data - Keep Forever??
Research - Still comparing with 20 years ago.

101. Models -

105. Models - Limited out to T+48
Global out to T Special - Chemet etc
Gulf - T x92x31 Takes 1800secs CPU
Global takes 1 Hour + 1 hour to process
Strict Opnl Schedule
Moving to 60 levels 15km & 7km grid….

107. Models 2 Operational Schedule
0320Z - 1st Analysis based on 00Z to 6 days
1120 Second update to catch late info. + background for next run
update to T+6
Z repeat
Backup ECMWF Washington etc

108. However Cant yet automate everything Need to verify models
Need to verify observations
Quality only as good as the verification
Still rely on HUMAN verification

112. The Weather machine Verification R&D Transmission
Support & Infrastructure
Observations
Prepare and give Product to Customer
Input to Model
Interpret
Forecast

113. Outstations Production Unified System - 1990s
Hardware:Vax Server, PCs,Macs
Software:Windows,MS Office, Freelance
Network: x400, , fax async file transfer, telex
Customer Interface
Was at 13 Sites
Mix Met and WP
Standardised Outstations

114. NIMBUS Replacement for ODS Standard across all sites
Forecasters can use any site to do their work
Local and central products
Standards
Off shelf and tailored software
Based on NT systems
Project managed - why?

115. Few Issues ? Same all sites
Cultural (not let go - always done this way)
Ergonomics each site - desking
New cabling
Continue services during install
Parallel running

116. Few Issues ? Forecaster training across 4 shifts
Training Just in time and at site
Portable system!
Managing rollout with contractors
Managing change to system releases and local products
On-going training for new releases

117. The Weather machine Verification R&D Transmission
Support & Infrastructure
Observations
Prepare and give Product to Customer
Input to Model
Interpret
Forecast

118. Customers PMS - Safety of life & information
National Severe Weather Warnings
Storm Tides
Gale Warnings
Shipping & inshore
Pollution
Information (including WWW & Library)
Customers

119. Some want their product and delivery kept very simple
Paper & Form based
Fax transmission
Mobile communications rooms
Rely heavily on experience of staff
Reactive to situations and events

122. Customer DETR - major climate prediction programme, warnings etc
World Temps
Others want a report following millions of pound of research over several years

123. Working with all aspects of life

124. Customer CAA - World area Forecast Centre for civil aviation
Automatic products and personal briefings
5% Tolerance on fuelling based on forecast
Customer

125. Services to Civil Aviation
NATS contract
World Area Forecast System
General aviation
Airlines
Services to airfields

126. Customer Defence - All armed forces
presence at all RAF & Ranges UK
all sites abroad
Mobile Met. Unit
NAVY
Customer
Special services when they need them - logistics to battlefield - people on the ground to advise

129. CORE
Gathering & exchange of observations (space & terrestial) worldwide.
Operation NWP models
NMC - interpretation & adjustment model output - guidance
R&D to improve overall efficiency & effectiveness.
Core Customer Group - agrees programme & targets
BBC
Customer

130. Customer Commercial Products tailored for each customer
All industry, Medai, commerce
eg Utility demand forecasts, Open Road, Transport, N.Sea Oil, Newspaper, TV, Supermarkets, Legal, Building, MIST, MetFAX, WWW, Overseas - TOMMS
Products tailored for each customer
Customer

131. Commercial Products

132. OpenRoad system RST Weather T3E Centre MES SSFM Highway authority
Sensor data
Highway
authority

133. International OpenRoad sites

134. CUSTOMERS Non Core R&D Admin & Finance
All audited against very strict performance & Business targets eg advice pollutants within 30 mins, annual improvements in forecast accuracy

135. Keeping it all going Own engineers for instruments
Single source maintainers of Computers
24X365 Help Desk
Operations team 24X360

136. Keeping it all going
Tivoli management system across - monitoring events across all platforms
Allow OPS staff to concentrate on resolution management not problem tracking

137. Help for the Customer 24 x 365 Customer Call centre
Single number local and 0800 calls
Help across range of services
Knowledge based responses
During Floods - peak 2K calls per hour

138. Recap - The Met Office Deliver World Class forecasts
Best possible accuracy
Lowest unit cost
delivered appropriate to Customer needs
Lots of delivery methods
stock products ?? others
“significant” customers

139. NT Project
Delivered on time to budget by experienced Project managers with appropriate resources and staff
“Standardised NT desktop”
Standard “functional” software
eg not 30 word processors
Managed software
Supportable centrally
Cost effective
Compliant

140. IS Strategy Covers all uses of IT in Met Office
Core observing, NWP, Forecasting research commercial
Interfaces to Customers Product format, transmission, security
Continual Process
Directions not technical Solutions

141. Standards Comms: TCP/IP, X400, LAN
Environments M.Frame, Workstation, PC
Operating Sys. MVS,UNIX,NT
Data Storage. Central
Graphics GKS, CGM
Programming Fortran, C
Analysis/Design SSADM, CASE

142. Software? Who uses standards? Standards & User group?
Standards documents
Documentation?
Earliest Code 1972?
Lots Versions of languages
System dependent?
Software management
Software backups - dangers?
Who uses standards?

143. Areas of uncertainty
FORTRAN and OO - latent impact of language changes
JAVA, PERL and C++
Training for the new millennium
FORTRAN training!!!
UNIX vs MVS

144. Other Issues Centralised Purchasing Single Source Maintenance
Use of Partners - Core business issues
Central File Storage
Virus Control
System & Data Integrity
System and Service Monitoring
Databases
Standards

145. Integration & Testing

146. Integration & Testing ISO900 and TickIT Processes mapped to services
Critical services need to be protected
Offshore and support for other met services systems as greater international use of Met Office systems
Increased maintenance issues

147. Supporting “our” systems
Now need 24 X 365 for software and Hardware
Cultural issues
Help desk support groups
Criticality of services defined and tested contingency and recovery plans in place

148. So who does use these computer things?
Perhaps better who not?
Messengers?
, Bookings, Memos, corporate info….
Security - surely not
Janus, Memos, , etc
Cleaners
Timesheets - corporate information
Compared to even 5 years ago….

149. Relocation
Between 2001 and 2003 the Met Office will relocate all its Bracknell functions to Exeter

150. Some IT Challenges of Relocation
New Building, working practices and Desktop
New Operating systems
Keeping continuity of services
Parallel running
End to end testing - right into customer sites
Moving goalposts of technology
Support infrastructure in Exeter area

151. Some IT Challenges of Relocation
Chance to re-write code or not? Is there time?
Loss of experts in short term?
Change of operating system to UNIX?
Get rid of legacy - will there be time?
Training between sites
Increased home and mobile working
Paperless Office??

152. Met on the net Web Site - Oct 95 Business Site - Jan 96 Intranet
System Monitoring
K hits per day
Pay as go services

155. Internet based services
Met where you need it, when you need it
Based on WAP, internet and mobile computing
What customers are demanding
Low cost, high volume
Problems of “technology”
Use of packages “Dreamweaver” to provide standards, and ease of training

156. Internet based services

157. Weather on other’s sites

158. Future Greater diversity requirements
Hydrology, Oceanography, Environmental etc
Greater Customer drive for more effective services at lower cost - reduced errors etc
Even greater reliance on appropriate IT for cost effective solution

159. Future More effectively managed IT Centralise Storage?
Centralise Services etc
Greater use of effective SLAs
Centralise production (NMC) - get more info to point use/sale faster.
Always need bigger and better facilities
Continue to get most out of kit
etc

160. Use of Computers OK to be reliant on computers
Must not be led by computers
Must not be slave to computers
An effective organisation relies on appropriately skilled, allocated, resourced and motivated STAFF - computers are after all just a TOOL!!!

161. What is most important?
“The Met. Office’s most valued asset is its staff - in a crisis they are always there…”
“You can buy a new computer - not so easy to buy expertise”

162. VACANCIES
Are you right for the job?

163. The Job Science & Technology
Improving performance of models
Climatic and environmental investigations
Support and development of comms, remote sensing & computing
Specialist - HR, Finance, Marketing & Sales, Property management
IT Specialists - eg Workstation support, Internet development

164. IT Specialist
Are you
A graduate or have experience in computing or a physical science
Fluent in FORTRAN and UNIX / configuration management
can demonstrate aptitude to IT in scientific environment
excited by computer systems, networks or applications
keen to apply your skills to real problems

165. IT Specialist Do you want to
apply your knowledge to weather forecasting and environmental sciences
work across the range of systems from the web to supercomputers
make a positive contribution to development and IT service provision
help us to take advantage of exciting developments in local and wide area networks
develop your existing computer skills

166. The Job - graduate Starting Salary - £12,740 - £32,619
Terms - Permanent and Fixed.
Qualifications:
good degree (or other professional qualification & experience)
in:
maths
physical discipline
computer science
meteorology

167. Application forms & info
Capita RAS, Innovation Court, New Street, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 7JB
Tel (24 hours)
Register interest - see web site…
Placements….

168. The Met Office Is Equal Opportunities Employer
seeks to achieve excellence through it's most valued asset - the people it employs.
Keen to hear from suitable applicants
Vacancies regularly.
SEE WEB SITE FOR DETAILS

169. How to contact me Kevin J Needham Met Office Met Office College
Shinfield, Reading, Berks, RG2 9AU
phone:
fax:

170. Questions?

171. Thank You

172. "The Met Office needs IT like a fish needs water.”
“To provide what it needs to survive”