The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is a National Weather Service modernization program, contracted from NOAA to PRC Inc. In true partnership spirit, the Government and PRC have completed a development process that will lead to full deployment of AWIPS throughout the conterminous 48 States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam. A vital part of this deployment is management of the AWIPS Communications Network (ACN), which includes the Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN) and the Wide Area Network (WAN). The SBN is a C-band point-to-multipoint satellite broadcast system that will disseminate large volumes of satellite, numerical model, and other data at high (wideband) data rates. The SBN includes the NOAAPORT broadcast system, which provides modern model output data sets to the Government and other users beyond AWIPS. The WAN is a terrestrially based point-to-point communications infrastructure, which uses the Government FTS2000 system to transport operational meteorological traffic from site to site or to and from the National Weather Service Telecommunication Gateway. The WAN also provides the AWIPS Network Control Facility (NCF) with the means to monitor and control the entire AWIPS enterprise.
As the AWIPS Program embarks on an aggressive deployment schedule, managing this complex network becomes critical to ensuring that local forecasters and hydrologists receive the data required to accomplish their missions. The massive increase in data generated by new sources and higher resolution models, coupled with improved functionality that will provide myriad products to the field, will place ever-increasing demands upon the ACN.
This paper will discuss the techniques that are and will be employed to monitor the performance of the ACN. Recent improvements made to the Satellite Broadcast Network will be described and metrics will be shown to graphically depict the effects of these improvements on SBN performance. The tools used to monitor the ACN will be described and the data provided by these tools will be presented to show how WAN performance has been monitored. The audience will understand how the ACN is monitored and they will be given a historical perspective of its performance from inception to date. It will be of interest to anyone intending to use AWIPS, destined to receive a NOAAPORT broadcast system, or involved in large-scale systems.