1. Steve Schotz, Ronla Henry, and NWS – Office of Science and Technology
Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS II) Extended Projects Overview and Status for 31st Conference on Environmental Information Processing Technologies January 6, 2015
Steve Schotz, Ronla Henry, and
Mark B. Miller
NWS – Office of Science and Technology

2. AWIPS Tech Infusion Scope
AWIPS II Migration: Migrate current AWIPS functionalities to a “Service Oriented Architecture” (SOA)
AWIPS II Extended: Implement on-going pre-planned, major infrastructure enhancements
NAWIPS - Transition of NCEP-AWIPS (N-AWIPS) into AWIPS II to integrate capabilities between field and national offices leading to more efficient services and consolidation of hardware and software baselines
Thin Client: Capability to enable AWIPS remote access from any location, critical for support to Decision Support Services, e.g., Incident Meteorologists (IMETs), CWSUs, Cont. of Ops (COOP), etc.
Data Delivery: Implements Smart Push/Pull technologies to enable AWIPS to handle increased data volumes assoc. with major new initiatives (e.g., GOES-R, higher res. models)
Collaboration: Real-time collaboration among NWS operators
Hazard Services: Streamlines hazards services information generation dissemination and access for partners to support Impact-based Decision Support Services (IDSS)
Broadcast Message Handling (BMH) system: Migrate NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) functionality to existing AWIPS II infrastructure 2 2

3. NAWIPS Migration Project Overview
National Centers AWIPS (NAWIPS) Migration Objective
Integrate capabilities between field and national offices leading to improved services
Key Benefits
Provide NCEP functionality to wider audience, e.g., NSHARP (vertical profile analysis tool), and PGEN drawing and product generation functions
Provide common functionality across AWIPS II, e.g., Unified Grid decoding and data storage
Consolidate hardware and software maintenance under one program
Status:
Initial migration complete, capabilities integrated into AWIPS II baseline
System and Forecaster Integration Testing in progress
Two NCEP Centers (NCO and CPC) to enter FOTE this quarter 3

4. Additional NCEP Capabilities In Development
SWPC Migration
ATCF System (Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecast)
Migration of legacy ATCF to AWIPS2 architecture
Benefits NHC, WPC, CPHC, and the NAVY
Ecological / Arctic
Development of imagery visualization capabilities over Arctic
VIIRS, SAR1/2, etc.
Development of oceanic visualization and PGEN techniques
Benefits OPC, NOS
WPC Gridded Blender
Migration of, and extensions to, legacy WPC gridded blender capability
Benefits All 4

5. National Centers Perspective (NCP) Display Examples
Surface Analysis Product using PGEN Tool
Global VIIRS Display to support NHC and OPC
SWPC real-time geomagnetic disturbance index (KP) monitor, interactive sampling and management terminator display 5

6. AWIPS II Extended - AWIPS II Thin Client
Objective - Develop enterprise solution for remote access to AWIPS capabilities
Provides full AWIPS II visualization functionality (CAVE) on Windows or Linux workstations or laptops
Use Case Summary
CWSUs – Linux AWIPS Remote Display (ARD) platform
Decision Support Services (DSS) Meteorologists
Fire Weather – IMETs (Windows Platform)
Other Decision Support Scenarios, e.g., Hurricane Isaac, Super bowl support, Boy Scout Jamboree – Linux and Windows platform
NWSHQ Operations Center – Linux platform
NCEP Scenarios - Development in progress to address short-term COOP requirements and to address CPC requirement to create and disseminate their weekend graphical products remotely – Linux
Key Benefits
Improves ability to provide impact based decision support from any location
Improves support for CWSUs over current AWIPS I approach
Provides additional options for COOP scenarios at NCs

7. Thin Client Architecture Overview
Thin Client is AWIPS II Visualization Component (CAVE) that runs in remote mode connected to an instance of EDEX via an Apache proxy server to access AWIPS II data
Thin Client CAVE Attributes
Runs on Linux or Windows platforms with appropriate graphics card and memory (See AWIPS II Users Guide Chapter 14 for details of platform requirements)
Thin Client inherits baseline CAVE features, enhancements and DRs
D2D perspective available by default, Other perspectives (GFE, NCP, Hydro, AVNFPS), available but not fully tested/functional on Windows platforms
Thin Client provides the following features to improve performance over limited bandwidth scenarios
Data and map lossless compression between CAVE and EDEX
Weather data, map and localization caching on the client platform

8. Thin Client Deployment Examples
DSS Laptop, Moore, OK Tornado 5/13
Super Bowl 2014 at 3 NYC Venues

9. AWIPS II Extended Data Delivery Project Summary Status
Data Delivery Objectives
Develop operational robust infrastructure to support “intelligent” access to non-local data provider datasets
Key Benefits
Supports high impact forecast and decision assistance processes by allowing users to access just the data they need by space, time, parameter
Mitigates demands on infrastructure associated with high growth in data volume e.g. ensembles, high-resolution models and GOES-R
Status:
Winter Capabilities
Access to MADIS (Mesonet observations)
Web Feature Service (WFS) employed for data access
SBN Subscription Channel – Utilized for shared subscriptions among AWIPS sites
Federated registries between central registry and site registries to mitigate limited bandwidth
Future Capabilities
Data Delivery will access the NESDIS Product Distribution and Access (PDA) Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) interface for data discovery and access services including Web Coverage Service (WCS)
Initial testing of Data Delivery and PDA OGC interface scheduled for Winter 2015
PDA IOC late 2015
Candidate satellite products include: GOES-R derived, NPP/JPSS, DMSP, METOPS 9

10. Data Delivery Key Features
Allow AWIPS-II users to access data not routinely delivered via SBN
Use “Smart” push/pull technologies for users to request
On an ad-hoc basis
Through subscription services
Users can temporally, spatially, and/or parametrically subset datasets
Reduces bandwidth
Reduces data processing at receiving AWIPS sites
Integrate request/receive functionality into AWIPS-II
Data Provider Strategy
IOC Data Provider: NOMADS (model data)
Post IOC Data Providers – MADIS (Obs Data), PDA (Satellite Data), Others TBD
Work with data providers and Integrated Dissemination Program (IDP) to support AWIPS II requirements; Services will be standards based to be as compatible as possible when IDP comes on line
Smart bandwidth management
AWIPS WAN delivery – IOC
SBN Subscription Channel – Post IOC (2015) for subscriptions shared among sites

11. AWIPS-II Data Delivery Screen Shots
Spatial Subsetting
Lat/Long bounds, pre-defined regions or draw a bounding box
Graphical selection

12. AWIPS-II Data Delivery Sample Screen Shots
Subset by Parameter and Vertical Level
Forecast Hour Subsetting

13. AWIPS II Extended Collaboration Project
Objectives
Improve our ability to communicate NWS forecasts to customers and partners so that the appropriate response is generated
Key Benefits
Enables more effective collaboration across all levels of NWS promoting a more coordinated and seamless set of products and services
Fosters consistency of NWS products and services
Status:
Initial Operational Capability (IOC) Deployed 4QFY12
Additional capabilities being added incrementally to operational baseline 13

14. AWIPS Collaboration Feature Summary
Real-Time Sharing of AWIPS CAVE displays among collaborators
Leaders actions such as zooming/roaming, color map changes, reflected in real-time in participants’ CAVE displays using CAVE map editor (tab) capability.
Allows leader to share displays of data that do not reside in participants AWIPS databases
Telestrator functions allowing forecasters to simultaneously draw/erase simple temporary lines and polygons on their CAVE displays to facilitate the identification of features of interest
Initial capability to share National Center Perspective (NCP) objects, e.g. watch) from NCP to other CAVE perspectives
Leader’s CAVE GFE Participant’s CAVE D2D

15. Feature Summary - Continued
Integrated Text chat capability that allows forecasters to chat during the collaboration session – Plan to replace 12 Planet when AWIPS II is fully deployed

16. Hazard Services Objective Key Benefits Status:
Improves information accessibility in support of Impact-based Decision Support Services (IDSS)
Key Benefits
Enhances AWIPS tools for decision support services
Streamlines generation of products e.g., watches and warnings to support emerging partner standards, e.g., CAP and GIS
Reduces development time associated with the introduction of new products and services
Status:
Production Development began Q2FY12
Implementation of select hydrology products – Q4FY15
See 4A.3 Hazard Services Progress Report Talk for details
Tie in social science… 16 16

17. Broadcast Message Handling (BMH)
Objective
Migrate NOAA Weather Radio (NWR), Console Replacement System (CRS) functionality into AWIPS II infrastructure
Key Benefits
Leverages AWIPS Infrastructure and support to improve BMH system robustness, availability and maintainability vs. CRS
Mitigates risk of depending on aged, custom CRS H/W and S/W
Enables extensibility to allow for future enhanced capabilities
Transition to BMH transparent to NWR end users except potentially improved voice quality
Status
Software Development: January, 2015
System Testing: January – March 2015
Operational Test and Evaluation (OTE): April – July 2015
Begin Deployment: September 2015
Tie in social science… 17 17

18. BMH High-Level Architecture
Leverage existing AWIPS II HW and code/packages
qpid
Alertviz
logging
GUIs/CAVE
Plug-in environment

19. QUESTIONS ????