Lessons Learned Migrating Science Algorithms from NESDIS/OSPO on Premise to NCCF

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)/Office of Satellite and Product Operations (OSPO) is in the process of migrating the generation of NOAA Unique Products from on premise (on-prem) servers to AWS Cloud. The Algorithm Scientific Software and System Transition Team (ASSISTT) team has repackaged science algorithms (SAs), including those that were running on legacy stove pipe systems and on AIX, into standardized containerized packages and delivered to operations for implementation on NESDIS Common Cloud Platform. Over the course of three and a half years ASSISTT has worked on 34 SAs that were running on OSPO legacy servers and 49 SAs that were running on OSPO’s NESDIS Data Exploitation (NDE) servers. This migration work has involved working across organizations, with multiple stakeholders and external users. The Standard for Cloud Containerized Algorithm Packages (CCAPs) which includes standards for delivering the package, output file names, metadata in the NetCDF4 outputs, were drafted to guide the delivery and transition to operations process. Following NESDIS’s direction to adopt Agile processes, ASSISTT adopted Agile software development practices to aid in this migration work. However, the biggest challenge that ASSISTT faced was not having access to the NESDIS Common Cloud Framework (NCCF) operational system. Because this operational system was newly established and ASSISTT had not delivered software packages for implementation to this new system before, ASSISTT’s knowledge of the finer details was limited. This resulted in ASSISTT having to deliver multiple patches. The lessons learned from this process is that communications had to be improved, feedback loops needed to be set up, and close collaboration was the key to successfully implementing 29 of the 49 NDE SAs and 20 of the 34 Legacy SAs. ASSISTT is continuing to improve its understanding of the target system as well as keeping all channels of communication open to support NESDIS’s goal of migrating all SAs from Legacy and NDE servers by the end of FY 2025.