2002 Annual

Monday, 14 January 2002: 11:30 AM
Assessing AWIPS Performance
Timothy Hopkins, NOAA/NWS, Silver Spring, MD; and W. R. Seguin, E. Hiner, D. Rhine, and L. Dominy
Since the Commissioning of AWIPS, the National Weather Service has devoted considerable time and effort to assessing and addressing AWIPS system performance of systems located at Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) and River Forecast Offices (RFCs). A performance metric, defined as the System Performance Rating was developed and is now calculated on a weekly basis for each WFO and RFC AWIPS server and the site as a whole. The metric includes the percent of the Central Processing Unit (CPU) use, run queues, system calls, page outs, and memory queues. In addition, metrics were developed to assess communication and product storage times as well as the performance of the Informix database. Commercial software is also being used by the AWIPS Program to collect and diagnose server and workstation related performance and problems. These metrics have proved to be extremely useful in assessing the overall health of WFO and RFC AWIPS systems, in making decisions on which components to upgrade, and in identifying individual site problems related to hardware and software. This paper will summarize a year's worth of these metrics and illustrate how they are being interpreted.

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