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$t->title = "Unidata Equipment Grant Report";
$t->content = <<<EOM

<div style="text-align: center; width: 800px;">
<h3>Increasing GIS Web Services Capacity to Serve The Unidata Community.</h3>
William Gallus Jr
<br />Daryl Herzmann
</div>

<p>The recent few years have seen an explosion with the need and use of 
environmental data provided via web services and standard formats to 
Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  Unidata has been a pioneer in 
developing software and stimulating its community to meet this growing 
need.  To that end, the <a href="http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/community/equipaward/">Unidata Equipment Grants program</a> provided funding 
to the <a href="https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu">Iowa Environmental Mesonet</a> (IEM) of <a href="http://www.iastate.edu">Iowa State University</a> to 
increase its capacity to serve Unidata provided datasets to the expanding GIS user base within the Unidata Community.

<h4>Hardware Purchased</h4>

<div style="float: right; border: 2px solid #000; margin: 5px;">
<img src="webfarm.png">
<br />Figure 1: IEM server configuration
</div>

<p>Using funds provided by the Unidata Equipment Grant and supplemental local 
funds, the IEM was able to build a mostly fault tolerant and scalable 
infrastructure to support the mass dissemination of GIS products and web 
services.  Specifically, two powerful Dell servers (PowerEdge 2850) along 
with nearly 1 terabyte of fast disk space were purchased with the Unidata 
grant.  After some bureaucratic fun, these systems were placed in 
production on November 29, 2005.

<p>These new servers were configured as participants in a <a href="http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org/">Linux Virtual 
Server</a> (LVS) cluster.  Figure 1 shows the current topology of the cluster 
with the Unidata grant providing the "LDM Processor" and "Spatial 
Database" components.  A LVS cluster provides a software based solution to 
do high availability and load balanced computing.  Two "director" nodes 
create a redundant virtual presence providing services by brokering 
traffic between external clients and cluster internal services.  These 
services include a Local Data Manager (LDM) instance, Spatial database, and web 
servers.

<p style="clear: both;"><h4>Delivering Unidata datasets to GIS</h4>

<p>The project proposal outlined a number of Unidata provided datasets that 
would be made accessible via web services and GIS formats.  During the past year, 
some of these datasets are now being provided in GIS formats/services by 
institutions such as the National Weather Service (NWS).  The NWS should 
be commended for efforts such as their <a href="http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/">RIDGE RADAR</a> data display system and 
the <a href="http://www.srh.noaa.gov/rfcshare/precip_analysis_new.php">Precipitation Analysis</a> website which provides the GIS community with 
operationally supported datasets.

<p>Thanks to the Unidata grant, the IEM is now providing these services and 
data files for the communities use.

<ol>
<li>CONUS NEXRAD base reflectivity composites
   <br /><i>Availability:</i> LDM/IDD, <a href="https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/nexrad/n0r.cgi?">OGC WMS-T</a>, <a href="https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/data/gis/images/4326/USCOMP/">HTTP GeoTiff</a>
   <br /><i>Notes:</i> This dataset is by far the most requested and the most
    widely used dataset the IEM provides.  It is produced by using the <a href="http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/help_and_documentation/manual/programs/chap4.php?prog=nex2img">'nex2img'</a>
    <a href="http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/">GEMPAK</a> program written by the Unidata Program Center.  Nationwide ~1 km 
    resolution products are generated every 5 minutes.  The equipment grant
    allowed the IEM to provide a <a href="http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wms">Web Map Service</a> (WMS) that supports the time
    specification (WMS-T).  This feature exposes our entire 5 minute interval 
    archive dating back to 2003 to WMS-T aware GIS clients!
</li>

<li>NWS watch/warning products
   <br /><i>Availability:</i> LDM/IDD, <a href="https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wfs/ww.php?">OGC WFS</a>, <a href="https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/data/gis/shape/4326/us/current_ww.zip">HTTP Shapefile</a>, <a href="https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/projects/iembot/">XMPP Jabber</a>
   <br /><i>Notes:</i> Utilizing the robust and extremely fast LDM/IDD 
    infrastructure provided by Unidata, the IEM wrote a number of decoders
    to ingest various NWS issued products into a spatial database (PostGIS).
    This software will be eventually released to the Unidata community
    under an Open Source license.  Organizations interested in beta-testing
    this software should contact Daryl Herzmann.
</li> 

<li>GOES satellite composites
   <br /><i>Availability:</i> <a href="https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/ogc/">OGC WMS</a>, <a href="https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/data/gis/images/4326/goes/">HTTP GeoTiff</a>
   <br /><i>Notes:</i> GOES East and West, IR and VIS imagery is available.  CONUS composites are also generated using a <a href="http://www.gdal.org">GDAL</a> utility.  An archive of these products will be exposed via a WMS-T instance later this summer.
</li>

<li>"Stage 4" NWS precipitation estimates
  <br /><i>Availability:</i> <a href="http://www.srh.noaa.gov/rfcshare/precip_analysis_new.php">NWS Precipitation Analysis</a> 
  <br /><i>Notes:</i> The NWS has provided this wonderful service, so there was
   no need for the IEM to duplicate this effort.  In the near future, the IEM
   will provide OGC WMS, WFS, and WCS services of this dataset.
</li>

</ol>

<p>Here is an example interface utilizing the WMS-T NEXRAD service.  The interface 
code is a part of the <a href="http://www.openlayers.org/">OpenLayers</a>
toolkit.  The default time display shows Hurricane Katrina making landfall.

<p>
<iframe src="wmst.html" style="width: 550px; height: 450px;"></iframe>

<p><h4>Summary:</h4>

<p>The Unidata equipment grant provided funding necessary to increase the 
capacity of the IEM to provide datasets to the GIS community.  Since the
installation, the IEM web farm is now handling 4 times the number of 
web hits than when it was previously at full capacity last fall.  The infrastructure in
place should allow another 8 fold increase in internet traffic before more 
substantial resources would need to be purchased.

<p>As always, the IEM continues to work with other members of the Unidata 
community, NWS, and private/public sector to increase the use of these
services and adoption of similar technologies.  Please do not hesitate to contact <a href="https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/info/contacts.php">Daryl Herzmann</a> if you have
any questions or suggestions.

EOM;
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