1. Ronla Henry & Steve Schotz NWS – Office of Science and Technology
Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) Overview for System-of-Systems Workshop October 7, 2009
Ronla Henry & Steve Schotz
NWS – Office of Science and Technology

2. AWIPS II Technology Infusion Scope and Milestones
AGENDA
AWIPS Overview
Mission and Functions
Brief History
AWIPS II Technology Infusion Scope and Milestones
AWIPS II Architecture Overview
Major Software Components
Communications Interfaces
Standards and Formats
AWIPS II Extended Data Delivery Project Overview

3. AWIPS Workstations and
AWIPS Overview - Functions/Mission AWIPS is the Critical Link to the NWS Forecaster
NEXRAD
GOES/POES
169 separate AWIPS systems at
137 geographical locations
Forecasts
Warnings
Advisories
Watches
NCEP Models
AWIPS
Communications
Buoys,
River Gauges
ASOS
AWIPS Workstations and
Servers
Service provided to
3066 US Counties
24 hrs/day,
365 days/yr.
~900 Workstations (total)
~1200 Servers (total)

4. AWIPS Overview - Service Delivery Facilities in Six NWS Regions

5. Operations phase of original contract expired on September 30, 2005
AWIPS A Brief History
The original prime contract for system development was awarded to PRC, Inc on December 29, 1992
To replace Automation of Field Operations and Services (AFOS)
PRC, Inc later acquired by Northrop Grumman IT (NGIT)
Commissioned
Operations phase of original contract expired on September 30, 2005
Re-compete contract awarded to Raytheon Technical Services (RTS) on August 17, 2005
Proposal included a high level plan to re-engineer AWIPS software into a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), AWIPS II

6. AWIPS II Technology Infusion Scope
AWIPS II Technology Infusion (FY2005 – FY2015)
A long-term project which delivers a modern, robust software infrastructure that provides the foundation for future system level enhancements for the entire NWS enterprise
Phase 1: (FY2006-FY2011)
Migration of WFO/RFC AWIPS (AWIPS I) to a modern Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) infrastructure executed incrementally through a series of task orders
Phase II: (FY2009-FY2012) – AWIPS SOA Extension
Creation of a seamless weather enterprise spanning NWS operations
Migration of NAWIPS into the AWIPS ISOA
Delivery of thin client to support for the Weather Service Offices, Center Weather Support Units, Incident Meteorologists, (e.g., Fire Weather, backup support for RFCs and National Centers)
Integration of Weather Event Simulator)
CHPS Integration into AWIPS SOA
Phase III: (FY2009 – FY2015) – Enterprise Level Enhancements
Data delivery enhancements: “Smart push-smart pull” data access
Integrated visual collaboration
Information generation enhancements
Visualization enhancements

7. Migration Schedule Task Order Delivery Date
Develop of AWIPS I SW Product Improvement Plan (TO1)
June 2006
Conduct Initial system analysis (TO2)
October 2006
Develop ADE/SDK (TO3-6)
July 2007
Plan baseline application migration (TO7)
October 2007
Migrate primarily D2D/Warngen capabilities migrate (TO8)
February 2008
Migrate primarily GFE capabilities (TO9)
September 2008
Migrate primarily hydrologic capabilities and infrastructure improvements (TO10)
February 2009
Complete AWIPS SOA Release 1.0 (TO11)
March 2010
System Operational Test and Evaluation (OTE)
August 2010
Field (OTE)
Target deployment
December 2010
2011

8. AWIPS I to AWIPS II Re-Architecture Approach
Perform “black-box” conversion
Preserve existing functionality, look and feel on top of new infrastructure
Thorough field validation and acceptance before deployment
No loss of functionality
Deployed system current with deployed AWIPS capability (i.e., OB9)
Use open source projects - No proprietary code
JAVA and open source projects enable AWIPS II to be platform and OS independent
Objective is to make AWIPS II available for collaborative development

9. AWIPS-II: Reference Architecture Based on Plug In Extensible services
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) - Camel
<<Service Framework >>
EDEX
<<Visualization Framework >>
CAVE
Core Generic Services
+Eclipse RCP PlugIns
+Data Animation
+GIS Raster Rendering
+Data Editing
+GIS Vector Rendering
+Data Analysis
+GIS Point Rendering
+Drawing
+Ingest Service
+Persist Service
+Metadata Service
+Subscription Service
+Request/Transform Service
+Adapter Service
+Collaboration Service
+Disseminate
Meta
Data
Core Libraries
Data

10. AWIPS-II Dependencies: Open Source Based Updated Oct. 05, 2009
CAMEL + Spring
Enterprise service bus and dependency injection container for SOA services (decoupled services)
activeMQ
Java messaging provider with clustering and JMS tunneling over HTTP
PostgreSQL
Relational database for storing Metadata from Data plug ins and spatially enables ingested data
PostGIS
Spatially enables PostgreSQL
Hibernate3
Relational RDBMS to Java Object mapping
GeoTools
Enables GIS capabilities and map projection framework
JOGL
Java API to OpenGL enables Gaming level visualization performance
HDF5
High performance file persistence of large data sets such as satellite, radar, and parsed point data
JAVA + ANT
Primary programming language and software build framework
Python + numPY
Data transform scripting languages with high performance math library
Apache Velocity
Provides a mechanism for automatic text product generation
Eclipse RCP
Plug In driven visualization framework
OpenFire
Real time collaboration server based on XMPP
Batik
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) used for plots
Apache Thrift
Binary service message transfer serialization
Jetty
Web application container

11. AWIPS Communications Interfaces NESDIS NWSTG WFO or RFC AWIPS Network
AMC4 Americom Commercial
Satellite
AWIPS Communications
Interfaces
Source of AWIPS Satellite Imagery
NOAAPort
Receive
System
GINI
CISCO
2514
SBP
DEMOD
NESDIS
SP1D
Non-Gov
Data Users
CSU/
DSU
Comb
HPA
Mod
AWIPS Master Ground Station
Server
Source of AWIPS Model Data
AS1A
WK1B
DS1A
Application
Server
Data
WFO or RFC
Work
Station
SBP
DEMOD
CISCO
4500
Site AWIPS
System
AWIPS Network
Control Facility
CISCO
7000
CPID
CPIC
SBIG
DSIA
2514
CSU/
DSU
AWIPS
WIDE AREA
NETWORK
(NOAANET)
NCEP
SB1A
NWSTG
NEXRAD
ASOS
CRS
RRS
LDAD
Other Gov, WMO, Academic, and
Private Industry Interfaces

12. AWIPS II Primary Standards & Formats
Ingested Data Formats
GRIB1/GRIB2 – Gridded data
NetCDF3 – Support AWIPSI/II interoperability
BUFR – Observational Data, e.g., soundings
METAR, SHEF – Surface and hydrological data
GINI – Satellite Imagery
OPRG L3 – Radar Imagery
Text Messages – Text products
Data Store Formats
PostGres – Metadata and select data type store, e.g., text
HDF5 – Binary store for grids, imagery and select observations
Product Distribution
NetCDF3 – NDFD Grids
ASCII Text – Text products

13. AWIPS II Extended Data Delivery Overview
Objective – Develop robust data delivery system within AWIPS II infrastructure that enables efficient access to high volume datasets
Address significant growth in data volumes, e.g., ensembles, GOES-R, NPOESS and mitigate impacts on SBN
High-Level requirements in common with NextGen
Data registry and discovery services
“Smart” push/pull technology
Sub-setting by user selectable space, time, and parameter
Complex retrievals, e.g., derived parameters, coordinate transformations, etc
Ad hoc and subscription services
Operationally robust – supports availability, latency and security requirements for operational users
Multi-Phase Implementation
IOC Focus – NWS data providers, e.g., NOMADS, MADIS, possibly with basic services only, discovery, sub-setting – Target FY12

14. AWIPS II Data Delivery – Significant Challenges
Potential Mitigation Strategies
Dependence on Data Provider readiness
Net enabled services, e.g., adapters
HW infrastructure to support operational requirements, e.g., availability and latency
Required resources/funding
Schedule constraints
Coordinate/pool resources with NextGen
Focus on NWS data providers such as Nomads and MADIS for IOC
Develop AWIPS II Distribution Servers
Dependence on network capacity (NOAANET)
Identify current/planned capacity
AWIPS PPBES FY12-16 submission
Develop governance requirements
Coordinate with NextGen requirements
Security between AWIPS, NOAANET and Data Providers
Engage organization security representatives early
Establish SLAs and ICDs

15. QUESTIONS ????