To demonstrate a technology path for evolution of the National Weather Service's (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS), FSL began an effort to port the D2D (Display 2-Dimensions) code to run under Linux on a commodity PC in 1999. In late 2000, the NWS fielded the first demonstration systems, and delivered two PC-based Linux forecaster workstations to each of its field offices in early 2002.
FSL has continued its Linux development work, including porting the data ingest/decoding subsystem. An updated description of this work was prepared in mid 2001. Elsewhere, PRC Inc., under contract to NWS, has developed a Linux version of the communications processor that provides the interface between the satellite broadcast and FSL's decoders. This is currently being tested at PRC, NWS headquarters, and FSL. The diagram below (prepared by NWS) approximates the current test configuration.
Current work at FSL includes exploration of new network technology, including a multicast of the data to the user workstations, and some experiments with a high-availability cluster for failover management.
Recent testing at FSL has included using one preprocessor (PP1) to ingest and decode satellite images and grids. Other data are still being ingested by the old HPRT Communications Processor.
The following notes are provided by NWS, keyed to the numbers on their diagram.