New Technologies for Storage and Display of Meteorolgical Data
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Transcript New Technologies for Storage and Display of Meteorolgical Data
New Technologies for
Storage and Display of
Meteorological Data
Dale Paynter
Operations Management Group
May, 2002
NUMUG Conference
Benefits of Technology?
Move to modern technology path that will be developed
and supported
Make initial installation, maintenance & upgrades easier
Change is the name of the game
External requirements & standards
Infrastructure changes
Organizational re-alignment
Meet rising expectations
Simple systems interfaces
Capitalize on staff knowledge & skills
Let Meteorologists manage, analyze and use the data
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New Technologies
What are they?
Data Driven System Architecture
Relational Databases
Web Applications
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Data Driven Architecture
What is it?
Write code to be independent of specifics
Make system configurable to define:
Input stream
Parameters for internal calculations
Reports
Interfaces to other systems
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Data Driven Architecture
What are the benefits?
Respond to new requirements and standards
Reduce dependency on vendors & IT
Get out of program change queue
Reduce change orders & site visits
Give users control through configuring system
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What does this let you do
easily?
Add new sensors with no code changes
Create new list reports
Change corporate information
Revise alarm / flag limits
Add or decommission sampling locations
Interface to different systems
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So how do we do this?
Parameters, parameters, parameters...
Make data base ‘self-descriptive’
Store ‘what’ is being stored as well as ‘values’
Eliminate need to reorganize / reload data to
accommodate changes
Make variables for all ‘constants’
Tower names
Time zones
Daylight saving time
Measurement codes
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Report titles & headings
Data to display / order
Report field formats
Conversion formulae
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Adding a new sensor
Traditional “Programming” Approach Data Driven Architecture Approach
User configures or reprograms
datalogger
Programmer adds new field to file
formats. Then dumps existing data,
reloads and verifies
Programmer changes data loading to
process new input layout & update
new field
Programmer changes updating to
display / edit new field
Programmer changes reporting to
display new field
System administrator installs final
programs on all affected computers
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User configures datalogger
User defines sensor in database
User tests and verifies results
System administrator copies
configurations to production system
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Relational Databases
What are they?
Data is stored in Tables made up of rows of
fields (columns)
Data is referenced through name of the field
Subsets of data may be selected
Tables may be joined to retrieve related records
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Relational Databases
Usage comparison example
Sequential file - 30’ wind speed is in columns 26
to 31 (format F6.2)
Typical relational database - 30’ wind speed is
stored in a field named WS30
Relational database using data driven
architecture - 30’ wind speed is stored in a field
named Value where the field MeasCode
contains ‘WS’ and Height contains ‘30’
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Relational Databases
What are the the general benefits?
Built-in security
Supports simultaneous accesses
Built-in data recovery techniques
Built-in data retrieval algorithms & optimization
Standard database interaction (SQL)
In-house expertise can be leveraged
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Relational Databases
And... for meteorological data?
Concurrent loading, updating and reporting
Permits non-sequential loading for legacy data
and data recovery
Handles data retention and archiving
requirements
Ad hoc queries
Time-stamping data changes
Keep original values as well as edited values
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Web Applications
In general...
User requests report and submits parameters through
browser
Web application generates report on server and sends to
browser
User views / prints report through the desktop browser
Benefits?
Removes need to run / maintain specific report programs
on desktop
Just ask your LAN Administrator…
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Web Server Configuration
Meteorologist’s
Workstation
running
Updater
Meteorological Monitoring System
Server
Web Server
MMS
Database
Sensors
Zenos
Zenos
InterceptTM
&
Loader
Zeno®s
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Reporter
Interface
Files
Meteorologist’s
& Users’
Workstations
running
Web Browsers
Other
Servers
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Web Technology
Internet or Intranet Server
Data manipulation and report generation
performed on server
Only results sent to browser
Automatic report refresh option
Additional security levels possible
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How does it perform?
Even running on a notebook:
Current reports are instantaneous
Historical reports take a few seconds
Frequency Distribution produces a 1 year
report in 12 seconds
Data Capture Summary produces a 1 year
report in 55 seconds
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Benefits of Technology
Move to modern technology path that will be
developed and supported
Get out of the program change queue
Flexibility to respond to change
Let Meteorologists manage, analyze and
use the data
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