Automation of NMCs for GTS operation Guangzhou, Dec. 8, 1998 SHI Peiliang NMC, CMA shipl@rays.cma.gov.cn

A Typical Conceptual Diagram of NMC GTS Satellite Broadcast Communication System Local Users Local Area Network Database Data processing & display

Technology Development Overview GTS Faster, more reliable links X.25 being widely used, but the technology is becoming obsolete TCP/IP to be introduced gradually (WMO Guide on the use of TCP/IP on the GTS) Satellite Broadcast Will become major data source for most NMCs in terms of data volume

Washington Moscow 9600 9600 Novosibirsk 7200 Khabarovsk 64 kb/s Almaty 7200 9600 50 75 9600 4800 Bishkek 9600 7200 9600 Tokyo PyongYang Ashgabad Tashkent 75 Ulaanbaatar Offenbach 75 75 N/O 75 75 Baghdad Dushanbe 64 kb/s Tehran 50 50 Beijing 64 kb/s 64kb/s 75 N/O 9600 7200 Kabul Offenbach Seoul 4800 Kuwait 50 N/O 100 50 9600 200 Karachi 9600 9600 50 New Delhi 1200 Bahrain Hong Kong Jeddah 50 75 1200 Doha 50 N/O 75 Kathmandu Macao 9600 50 1200 100 Moscow Emirates 200 100 9600 Cairo Muscat 2400 100 Hanoi Algiers N/O Dhaka 200 Manila 50 Sanaa Vientiane 75 Colombo 75 Cairo 50 Yangon 1200 200 64 kb/s Male N/O Melbourne 50 200 RTH Bangkok 75 NMC N/O Phnom Penh 1200 Melbourne Centre in other region Kuala Lumpur MTN circuit Regional circuit Regional Meteorological Telecommunication Network for Region II (Asia) point-to-point circuits implementation (transmission speed in bit/s) Interregional circuit 25.02.1998

Technology Development Overview Computer faster PC---->Workstation---->super computer cheaper easier to maintain, modular design, low environment requirement operating system - dominated by UNIX network protocol - dominated by TCP/IP The rapid advances in high performance computing technology make it possible for smaller centres to do NWP operation, e.g. MM5

Technology Development Overview Local Area Networks Ethernet, 10/100 mb/s, cost-effective, HUB/Switch connection, meets most of the requirements of a NMC FDDI - very mature LAN backbone technology, 100mb/s, widely used at big centres ATM - cell switching based, speed varies from 155mb/s to 622mb/s or even higher, good at multimedia applications, suitable for campus area network backbone, relatively new technology, not cheap Gigabit Ethernet - new technology, 1000mb/s, needs time to mature

Technology Development Overview Database File based appropriate databases are still widely used, efficiency is the main reason Commercial DBMSs becoming more and more popular, Sybase/Oracle/Informix etc, efficient and very flexible for small pieces of data

Experiences and lessons Buying equipment is easy, while designing and implementing your operation system is not; you know your applications better than anybody else Hardware devalues quickly, so the time between installation and production should be made as short as possible

High Performance Computers at NMC-Beijing

NMC’s LAN at present Hubs/switches providing Ethernet access to each office rooms Alpha servers STK tape library R Cray J90 VAXs FDDI ring Cray C90 SGI workstations R IBM SP Other National level Centers and buildings in the CMA campus

RTH-Beijing, 1998 FDDI Database Ring DECNET Domestic TCP/IP, Networking Centre TCP/IP, DECNET FEP Alpha 1000 FEP FDDI Ring Database Cluster Alpha 1000 FEP FEP Super Computers RTH-Beijing, 1998

Recent developments at RTH-Beijing Computer upgrading completed last year Main system for MSS: VAX780 --> DEC Alpha 1000 Cluster Database computer: VAX6340/6440 --> Alpha 4000 Cluster New SCSI Disks on front-end processor FDDI Network interface on all Alpha servers OpenVMS provides good portability from VAX/VMS MSS software enhanced for T4 fax handling

Recent developments at RTH-Beijing Circuit upgrades 9.6kbps analogue ---> 64kbps digital for Beijing-Tokyo (11/97), and Beijing-Offenbach (6/98) T4 fax operation Average transmission time for one chart cut down from 20 minutes to 1 minute Beijing-Moscow: LAPB ---> X.25 PVC