METOC Data Server (MDS)
Objective
The METOC Data Server (MDS) provides meteorological data to software clients. These clients either display the data from various perspectives, or incorporate the data into further computations.
Description
The METOC Data Server (MDS) is a repository of four-dimensional weather data. The MDS system contains a number of data conversion programs, supporting the following file formats (not an exhaustive list): GRIB (GRIdded Binary) - GFS (formerly Avn), Eta, Ruc, WAFS, MM5.
These conversion programs ingest data into our internal format, known as Meteorological Data Volume (MDV). The ingesters run continually, processing and converting data files when they arrive from external sites. The MDV server then provides a rapid response to data requests from display applications like JViz. MDS can service requests by field name, vertical level, and geographical area.
MDS is intended for use as a high-volume server to handle many requests in a time of high demand, such as a terrorist attack. The system provides load balancing among the server machines, multiple gateways to handle many simultaneous requests, and system monitoring of the data ingesters.
Conceptual view of the Next Generation MDS system. As shown HPAC and/or JEM clients can access these systems over HTTP(s) using Web Services SOAP and request a myriad of both metadata (data about data) and actual data, with varying degrees of fidelity. The requests are served by load balancing server farm to ensure efficient responses during periods of high user request traffic.
