What Does a Successful NOAA Testbed Look Like from an Operational Perspective?

NOAA's testbeds and proving grounds facilitate the orderly transition of research capabilities to operational implementation through development testing in testbeds, and pre-deployment testing and operational readiness/suitability evaluation in operational proving grounds, as described in the approved Guidelines and Performance Measures.

The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) within the National Weather Service (NWS) has been a long time participant in the transition of research into operations. Currently NOAA has a dozen testbeds covering topic areas ranging from hazardous weather to space weather with climate, aviation and satellite data in between. Each testbed operates differently yet has the same purpose: to transition new techniques and capabilities into an operational environment. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast some fundamental differences associated with the NOAA testbeds and to describe what success look like from the operational perspective.