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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.

6 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. 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."
  2. 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
  3. 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. :)

  4. 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?

  5. 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 ....