Enhancements for the RFC’s IT Web Consolidation Enhancements for the RFC’s IT Web Consolidation Diane Cooper and Keith Stellman Southern Region HQ

Overview What is being implemented What is being implemented Reason for the change Reason for the change Enhancements over current structure Enhancements over current structure How you can help How you can help Timeline Timeline

What is being Implemented Phase 1 Phase 1  Procurement and Installation of equipment  Load balancing of  AHPS Precipitation graphicsPrecipitation graphics All other components of AHPSAll other components of AHPS  Climate, RIDGE, WWA map, Mobile, WFO front pages, point-click forecast, Text data. Phase 2 Phase 2  Currently being evaluated (stay tuned)

Example: Radar Data Flow/Redundancy SRH CRH NWSHQ Web Web Web Radar.weather.gov Central Server NOAA port Bandwidth capacity x 3

Reasons for Changing Current Structure SRH CRH HQ Web CRH Web ERH Web NOAA port SRH Web WRH Web WRH Single point of failure I want LMRFC website ERH

Enhancements CMS (Configuration Management System) CMS (Configuration Management System)  Pre-defined templates which meet DOC/NOAA/NWS/CIO requirements  Designer can focus more on content and data over policy  Scripts are tested on a development server and accepted before going operational  Allows for a consistent look and feel  Standardization of directory structure and data transfer  Rsync will replace ftp/sftp providing a more efficient data transfer

CMS – A user friendly web gui Step 1: Entering CMS Step 2: Selecting which page to edit or you can create a new page. Step 4: Selecting a page to edit Step 3: Starting a page from scratch. Step 5: Editing a page in development Step 6: Going Live with the final product.

How Can You Help ? Ensure that your web pages pass the Phase 1 recommendations from the RFC Standard Web Design Team – Dated April Ensure that your web pages pass the Phase 1 recommendations from the RFC Standard Web Design Team – Dated April Identify what is mission critical verses historical information Identify what is mission critical verses historical information (What data needs to be load balanced and what can be stored at only one web farm?) Determine templates that are needed for sub pages…i.e. River Quick Briefing Pages, FFG, River forecast pages, etc. Determine templates that are needed for sub pages…i.e. River Quick Briefing Pages, FFG, River forecast pages, etc. Begin converting any cgi or perl scripts to php, java, or java script. Begin converting any cgi or perl scripts to php, java, or java script.

Timeline Conference call with office web teams to provide more detail and Q&A time…First week in Feb. Conference call with office web teams to provide more detail and Q&A time…First week in Feb. Spin up a team to determine the templates. (Ideally this would be a national team.) Spin up a team to determine the templates. (Ideally this would be a national team.) Phase 1…target June 1, 2007 Phase 1…target June 1, % of WFO and RFC pages migrated by Sept 30, % of WFO and RFC pages migrated by Sept 30, Remaining 20% - prior to hurricane season Remaining 20% - prior to hurricane season 2008.

Conclusion Changes are coming to how we do business in relation to the web. Changes will allow us to be  Faster to create pages and provide information to the users,  balance our user demand load with less down time,  provide tools for individuals to easily develop websites,  Continue to allow for innovation to remain on the cutting edge.