Wednesday, 12 February 2003: 4:00 PM
Harnessing the Spare Computing Power of Desktop Personal Computers for Improved Satellite Data Processing and Technology Transition
A system has been set up to generate mapped satellite imagery for NESDIS operational customers that can be run on any collection of NOAA Office PCs running Windows 2000. In addition, the system can be modified experimentally by more sophisticated users who have software compilers on their office PCs. The system is composed of a single application that fits on a standard CD-ROM and can generate a variety of imagery data derived from microwave, visible and IR data from NOAA and DMSP Polar-orbiting satellites. It has been installed on dedicated PCs for operations as well as the office PCs of maintenance personnel, and research collaborators. The maintenance personnel PCs are used to process parallel development data streams during non-working hours. The benefits of this system are that underutilized NOAA Office PCs can process satellite data streams in support of research, development and operations. If successfully and securely implemented on larger scales in the future this could dramatically increase the computing power NOAA currently has available to process satellite data, particularly considering current and planned connections of NOAA to the Next Generation Internet.
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