The Network Adapter Box, Supporting User Readiness for CGS Block 2.0

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Common Ground System (CGS) Interface Data Processing Segment (IDPS) Block 2.0 incorporates various system architecture and design improvements. Among them are:

• the normalization of data transfer protocols supported for data delivery; reducing them from three to one • the adoption of a more modern algorithm for calculating the hash used to verify data integrity.

In Block 1.2.4, S-NPP and GCOM-W1 data products flow from the JPSS Ground System to the National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) Data Exploitation (NDE) 1.0 and to the 557th Weather Wing. In the Block 2.0 timeframe, NOAA's Office of Satellite and Product Operations (OSPO) will transition users from NDE 1.0 to NDE 2.0 and the 557th Weather Wing will receive data products from NESDIS Environmental Satellite Processing Center (ESPC). The Network Adapter Box (NAB) serves as an adapter between IDPS Block 2.0 and current IDPS Block 1.2.4 users. The NAB enables both NDE 1.0 and NDE 2.0 to operate in parallel from a common IDPS. The NAB acts as an additional IDPS Block 2.0 data consumer and delivers data to NDE 1.0. As part of this data forwarding function, it will also convert the integrity check from the Block 2.0 method to an IDPS Block 1.2 compliant method. The NAB has an option that, when exercised, feeds data products directly to the 557th Weather Wing. The NAB is an interim solution until users are transitioned to ESPC Product Data Access (PDA).

The NAB requirements are to provide an autonomous, low cost, high performance, high availability solution. The solution will act as a reliable bridge while users are transitioning their systems to the IDPS Block 2.0 data flows. High performance and high availability are required to support near-real time and mission critical users. NAB requirements in these areas are a maximum 30 seconds of latency and a 99.9% operational availability. The NAB needs to be an autonomous system as operators are unable to monitor the system 24x7, even though the NAB will support 24x7 operations. It also has to be a low cost solution as it is anticipated that it will be operational for a limited period while users are transitioning from Block 1.2 to Block 2.0 data flows.

This paper will present the NAB overall system architecture, its hardware and software design and the manner in which it supports user readiness for CGS Block 2.0.