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Linux To Power NWS's Storm Prediction System

Posted by timothy on from the mind-the-ups-batteries-please dept.

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.

14 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Bravo by enodev · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Now I'll now 185 seconds earlier that a flash just struck my home :-).

    The previous systems contained Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC processors with clock speeds ranging from 100 to 120 MHz. Although those specifications aren't directly comparable to the 2.4-GHz clock speeds of the dual Intel Pentium 4 Xeon processors, the new workstations, which have 2G of RAM each, run the various AWIPS applications noticeably faster than their predecessors, Piercy said.

    For instance, one AWIPS app that used to take more than 60 seconds to start up now loads in 18 seconds, he said.

    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!
  2. Interesting by frankthechicken · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Interesting, according to this

    Linux first appeared on the NWS scene in 1995 in the form of Slackware

    And in comparison to their previous HP-UX systems:-

    . . .the switch has helped increase data processing speed.

    "The performance that we measure with our benchmark has increased by over 100% since we completed phase one of our Linux migration," happily boasts Piercy.

    1. Re:Interesting by 4of12 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's the key issue.

      The purchase price of high performance RISC machines has always been O(US$10^4) and the acquisition cycle a period of several years.

      While you can still get high performance RISC workstations for those prices, it doesn't make any sense when comparing price/performance.

      In 1993, PC's significantly underperformed RISC machines, so paying 5-8 times the prices was worth it.

      In 2003, PC's perform equitably to the best RISC workstations: you need a really good reason not get a really great Linux workstation for $6-8K instead of high-end RISC hardware for $20-100K.

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
  3. So what's the forecast? by trystanu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Unsettled weather for the duration of the migration?

    Are forecasts really getting better as computer power increases? I know that Metrology is always in need of more computer cycles to model the weather, but have forecasts actually improved with this power? Are there any success statistics around?

  4. Dear NWS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Dear NWS,

    As I understand, you've recently upgraded your workstations to some slick IBM machines running Linux. Congrats. Now, about your old workstations. I'd be willing to take the off your hands, I won't even charge anything. I just want to see them go to a good home, not some dumpster behind your building -- ya know, [insert their address here].

    Thank you,
    Me.

    Fortress of Insanity

    1. Re:Dear NWS by Xenolith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yep, we have some 90 lb. paperweights at our office. The OS has been wiped from the hard drive. Is their a linux flavor that will work on a HP J200?

      --

      Journal
  5. Linux replacing Unix : just standard evolution by slb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What would have been far more interesting is a Windows to Linux migration with the same improvement in performance and TCO.

    --
    http://www.transparency.org
  6. Maybe this will help Linux's respectability by Maestro4k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Having someone big and respected like the NWS using Linux and announcing it publically should help Linux's respectability quotient in the US a lot. I'm glad to see this happening, both because it increases Linux's usage out there, and because it'll save us money (IIRC, the NWS is taxpayer funded), and probably lead to more accurate forecasts. It seems every time the computers they use get faster/more powerful, the forecasts get better. :)

  7. lies by n0k14 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Almost every day I read about a department, agency, company or even country switching to linux. I rarely read about switching from linux back to windows. Where is this inconceivebly high implementation and training cost for linux that micosoft keeps whining about?

  8. Practical Outcome of This Change? by BallPeenHammer · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'm curious about the expected practical outcome of this change. Presumably, they would be using the same prediction routines, but on faster boxes.

    Would this mean that they would get the same predictions, just a little faster?

    Would more capable machines mean that they could run some more-complex versions of the prediction routines they run now? Say, with more grid points, or smaller time divisions?

    Are the current prediction routines OS-dependent, so that they'll have to be ported to the new Linux OS? Is that easy or hard?

    What effect does the new Linux OS have on future application development? Are the existing development tools HP-UX oriented? Does that mean they would need a new tool set to do their development?

    --
    The Law of Falling Bodies
  9. Why not using distributed.net... by Ummite · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why not using free systems like distributed.net, wich is 1) more powerfull and 2) free. People would be glad to help predict better weather, since actually they can't predict correctly 24h in advance ....

  10. hi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The US Air Force's New Tactical Forecast System runs on Red Hat 7.1. I think there is just one server at every base.

    When someone told me they wanted to accredit the NTFS system, I was like, WTF?

  11. The times they are a'changing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I used to work as a Sys Admin for the NWS a a few years back where we used AWIPS(the forecast folks were in another building) - and even then the HP workstations were costly and slow. AWIPS was a closed system and we didn't directly do any development on them but because NWS had hardware contracts with HP we had to usually purchase their equipment. The problem was that the HP workstations/servers were so expensive (especially compared to PCs) that the office I worked for couldn't afford to upgrade them - we had a lot of old, slow and just clunky HPUX systems. Several times I suggested to management that switching to Linux on Dell machines (easily available through Fed government contracts) for our internal development would save a bundle of money and mean better equipment but was always dismissed with the claim that Linux was a toy system. Lo and behind, somebody in the NWS has finally seen the light! (Although, to be fair, the NWS AWIPS developers were investigating Linux long before management ever knew what was going on ...).

  12. Microsoft at the NWS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The NWS used to have a very inexpensive site license contract with Corel for their word processing software - it fact, it was the "official" standard for internal document exchange; you could still get MIS Word/Project/Excel etc. but it was still pretty expensive even with the government discount. Keeping track of licenses was also a problem with the Microsoft software. (Interestingly, the Corel WordPerfect software used to have versions that would run on both Windows and Unix). I don't know if using Corel is still the case or not. Budget concerns (and possible privatization) have always been a big issue at the NWS and so I'd be a bit surprised if they switched to only Microsoft on the desktop - although to be compatible with other government agencies, maybe they would have had to give in to Microsoft. Switching to Linux for workstations should have been a no-brainer.