Linux To Power NWS's Storm Prediction System

Mr. Plow writes "The National Weather Service is migrating to Linux-based IBM workstations and has purchased 900 IBM computers and 160 servers to do so." He includes links to coverage at Forbes (a Reuters wire service story there), Government Computer News, and Computerworld.

Comments

Re:Bravo

[kinnell]

That's a increase of about 48 times of computing power and the app just loads 3 times that fast? Something has to be seriously wrong with this setup!

Startup times are affected more by disk access times than processor speed. Disk access times don't increase anywhere near as fast as processor clock frequencies.

Windows

[RevMike]

Of course... With windows all you see is blue

Of course, the NWS is using Linux to replace HP-UX workstations.

Re:Bravo

[AmVidia HQ]

load times is a wrong benchmark to pick, it doesn't show proccessing power well. Load times are mostly disk-bound.

Load times more than 3x faster IS a LOT faster. And no doubt they will have many many times faster actual data crunching speed.

Re:We have are workstations already

[girouette]

The computing context is similar where I work (Meteorological Service of Canada). There is a big difference between the forecaster's (technical) desktop and the clerical desktop. Our technical desktop never belonged to MS WIndows. Cost remains a concern, obviously, which is why we are moving away from proprietary Unix.

For what it's worth, our next-generation workstation is going to be java-based. (Joint effort with a handful of European countries led by Germany.) http://www.dwd.de/de/Technik/Projekte/NinJo/ (German language)

Dunno about the NWS, but for our clerical desktop to move away from Microsoft would be nothing short of miraculous.

Re:powered by linux....

[Orp]

I, for one, give a shit. I am a meteorology professor who has been using Linux for over a decade. Having the NWS transition over to Linux means it is possible for me to run the same software that NWS operational forecasters are using. In fact, that's already possible - I have a copy of the AWIPS software on a CD-ROM sitting in my office, ready to install. This, in turn, opens the door for research possibilities and just as importantly, allows me to expose students to the kinds of software they will be using should they opt to work for the NWS (many do).

I visited the Grand Rapids NWS office a month ago and most of the workstations were already running Linux. The SOO (Science Operations Officer) seemed to be pretty happy with this. Why shouldn't he - hardware and software costs go down, machines are faster, and the OS is something that most scientists are using anyway.

Leigh Orf