NWS creates systems bridge
Connecting state and local government leaders
The network makes the weather data available to multiple PCs simultaneously. Delays in the Commerce Department's long-planned, $520 million Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System presented a National Weather Service field forecast office with an operating system quandary in 1995. The field office in Wichita, Kan., needed a multitasking operating system that could run MS-DOS applications linked via PC serial ports to minicomputers hosting the Automation of Field Operations and Services (AFOS)
The network makes the Delays in the Commerce Departments long-planned, $520 million The field office in Wichita, Kan., needed a multitasking operating system that could The operating system had to bridge between AWIPS and the older AFOS, Howerton said. Howerton and his colleagues had found it difficult to make Microsoft Windows for Following the lead of NWS Western region, the Wichita office decided to install Before, we used PCs for standalone word processing and Lotus cc:Mail, AFOS minicomputer features were replicated and improved at little cost, and the Wichita Until a year ago, the Wichita users had 33- and 66-MHz 486 PCs with 16M of RAM. Now the Overall performance declined after the migration to NT Server 3.51 and later to NT 4.0, But the network makes the weather data available to multiple PCs simultaneously, Twelve administrative PCs run Win95. NWS replicates the weather data from one NT 4.0 server with multiple SCSI drives to a The first system dials out to nearby NWS offices for additional weather data over a A third server, running OS/2 Warp Connect 3.0, copies the directory file structure from The Wichita office defragments the server drives each week, using Diskeeper Lite
weather data available to multiple PCs simultaneously.
Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System presented a National Weather Service field
forecast office with an operating system quandary in 1995.
run MS-DOS applications linked via PC serial ports to minicomputers hosting the Automation
of Field Operations and Services (AFOS) communication and display system, said Paul
Howerton, lead meteorologist.
AFOS was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agencys main vehicle
for exchanging forecast charts and alphanumeric data with NWS field offices.
Workgroups 3.11 work for them. They were doubtful about the multitasking capacity and
stability of Windows 95, which Microsoft Corp. had not then released.
IBM OS/2 Warp 3.0 on eight PCs. Former Western region employee Matt Strahan, who now works
in the Southern region, helped with configuration, Howerton said.
Howerton said. He called it a giant step forward to link the PCs under OS/2 on a LAN
running Novell NetWare 3.12.
users needed only minimal training. Noelle Runyan, a meteorologist, helped with database
configuration, Howerton said.
systems are 133- and 166-MHz Pentiums with 32M or 64M of RAM. NWS Central region
also migrated its networks to Windows NT Server on Gateway Inc. servers.
according to NWS Web site at http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ict/lan/lantoc.htm.
eliminating the need to schedule AFOS data requests individually over asynchronous
circuits.
second one, using NTs directory replication service, according to NWS Web
site.
dedicated telephone line, Howerton said. The second system acts as a backup and monitors
NWS forecasts, model outputs, graphics and warnings.
the servers running NT. It also shares resources, such as names and directory permissions,
through OS/2 peer-to-peer services. It notifies the PC clients when the network goes down,
Howerton said.
freeware. It has tried to tweak better performance out of NT by adding a page file to all
drives, changing cache settings and making equal foreground and background execution a
priority.