NOAA’s NWS Telecommunication Gateway RTH Washington Dan Starosta, Telecommunications Gateway Operations Branch Office of the Chief Information Officer NOAA’s National Weather Service FAA FTI Brief & Tour March 14, 2007

NWSTG Functional Overview The NWSTG is the central communication facility of the NWS; the primary acquisition and distribution center for NWS data and products; the primary acquisition and distribution center for international data and products to meet WMO, ICAO and bi-laterally agreed US requirements; A major data exchange hub for NOAA and other agency data and products.

NWSTG Functional Overview The NWSTG includes WMO Regional Telecommunication Hub (RTH) Washington ICAO OPMET Databank (KWBCYMYX) the ASOS Operations and Monitoring Center (AOMC) Operational oversight of U.S. federal automated surface observing systems the AWIPS Network Control Facility (NCF) AWIPS is the main NWS’ system which supports the NWS forecast and warning mission requirement The NCF is the central communications hub and technical support center for AWIPS

Data Input to the NWSTG Data Input Methods IP / Sockets X.25 Asynchronous FTP – http://weather.gov/tg/ftpingest.html Email – http://weather.gov/tg/emailingest.html Web - http://weather.gov/tg/bullguid.html

Dissemination Systems International National NWWS NWR LDAD Family Of Services (FOS) Interagency Connections SBN/NOAAPORT AWIPS* * Although not dissemination systems these are systems that are critical to the process GTS ISCS EMWIN Internet GMDSS NWS Telecom. Gateway*

NWS Telecommunications Gateway (NWSTG) GTS Other Agencies NCEP NESDIS Family of Services Public Product Service Domestic Data Service3 International Data Service High Resolution Data Service Server Access Service Radar Products Service NWSTG NCF ISCS EMWIN NOAAPORT Watches, Warnings, Advisories, & Statements GOES

Replacement / Backup TG Description NWS users Nat’l Centers for Environ. Prediction NWS Regional Offices Domestic/int’l observation & forecast offices AWIPS Worldwide users WMO/ICAO Family of services Govt. agencies Internet users Foreign countries Emergency mgrs NWS Telecom Gateway Located in Silver Spring New message switching syst. allows future upgrades x 2 upgradeability Much improved response time Redundancy ensures uninterrupted service Full configuration management 120GB/46 1500 GB 85GB/38 250 GB Geographically separated backup system in northern Virginia 90GB/46 900 GB 950GB/38 3500 GB Daily Throughput/# of circuits Current over projected growth

Government Networking Requirements IP-based networking solution Any-to-any connectivity High degree of bandwidth scalability Optimum redundancy and survivability IP convergence (i.e., voice, video and data over IP) High-end performance Network security remains paramount, particularly in light of today’s socio-political threats Segmentation from the public Internet Minimizes risk of security or privacy breaches Sprint Proprietary – Speakers notes are intended for internal use only Last Updated – July 17, 2003 Government and state agencies tend to be “IP-savvy” They see the clear benefits associated with utilizing network services based on IP As such, many government departments and agencies are being mandated to move away from Layer 2-based environments (i.e., Frame Relay, ATM) and migrate to IP-based solutions The key benefits inherent in IP-based solutions are as follows: Any-to-any connectivity – the Internet Protocol (IP) is ubiquitous (widely available and supported) and enables various locations to directly connect to one another both easily and securely Fully-meshed environments (every location connected to every other location) are more readily and cost-effectively achieved with IP solutions High degree of bandwidth scalability – many legacy solutions cannot meet the government’s requirements for high bandwidth Frame Relay, for example, taps out at DS3 (45Mpbs) with PVCs available at only a fraction of that bandwidth IP solutions readily and cost-effectively scale to OC48 (2.5Gig) and higher Optimum redundancy and survivability – unlike statically switched legacy alternatives (i.e., Frame Relay, ATM, etc.) which are based on a number of limited, pre-defined paths, IP networks are based on intelligent routing IP allows customer traffic to be dynamically routed around network outages or congestion enabling each packet to take the most optimal path through the network Statically switched alternatives, however, limit traffic flows to one (or, at best, two) paths, which does not provide the flexibility to route around outages or congestion without incurring substantial delay or packet loss IP convergence - as previously mentioned, the IP protocol is ubiquitous IP is the de-facto standard for internal networks and applications The majority of underlying traffic on Frame or ATM networks is in fact IP in origin Given that most applications are IP in origin, it makes sense to run them over an IP core that does not subject the customer’s applications to the additional overhead of Layer 2 networks As voice and video become more IP compliant, it becomes possible for the govt. to run all of their voice, video and data applications over the same network, thereby lowering costs and complexity High-end performance - IP routing infrastructure has surpassed Layer 2 switching alternatives in terms of speed and availability. Many government customer may have concerns with IP solutions that run over backbones that are part of the public Internet By virtue of being part of the Internet, the underlying architecture of public IP networks is visible to the rest of the Internet and therefore subject to conventional Internet risks, the most notable being distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks With DDOS, malicious parties work to flood network routers with traffic in an attempt to bring down portions of the network It should be noted that on Sprint’s public IP network (SprintLink) DDOS is a theoretical risk, but Sprint employs a host of security measures that result in DDOS and other hacking attempts being a practical impossibility However, for customers that have high security and privacy concerns and are willing to pay a premium, a private network that is sealed off and separate from the public Internet can provide additional levels of protection and peace of mind

MPLS Network NOAANet NOAANet GTS Other Intnl Non IP Internet IP connections Range of speeds: Fractional T1, T1 Multi-Megabit T1 Fractional DS3, Full DS3 10Mb Ethernet 100Mb Fast Ethernet OC3 and OC12 NOAANet PIP Gateway Upgrading to OC-12 GTS Other Intnl Non IP Internet

Issues Data Explosion Bandwidth Increased resolution of observations and models Increased frequency of observations and models Increased number of sensors Improved sensing technology New spatial and temporal requirements Graphics, imagery, and video Thousands of small products Bandwidth Technology selection Estimation of capacity growth Transmission of ‘information’ versus ‘raw data’

New Technologies Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Digital Video Broadcast Optical Networks Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Wireless Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI) New Data Formats Table driven – Binary & XML Data discovery based exchange

Thank You! Questions? Discussion