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=============================================================================== Robb Kambic Unidata Program Center Software Engineer III Univ. Corp for Atmospheric Research address@hidden WWW: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/ =============================================================================== ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 16:18:27 -0600 From: Dave Fulker <address@hidden> To: Michael W Dross <address@hidden> address@hidden, support-idd <address@hidden> Subject: Re: NOAAPORT receive system feeding LDM Mike, I want to reinforce Ben's point that we should add additional NOAAport redundancy into the IDD only with caution. The degree of redundancy already in place is sufficient to yield pretty high levels of reliability, and additional redundancy potentially could REDUCE reliability by creating congestion. This outcome is especially likely unless we are certain that all ingesters package the data so as to produce the same MD5 checksums, etc. To further complicate matters, we envision a transition--perhaps next year--to packaging the data with identifiers that are more directly linked to the headers used in NOAAport. (These contain more information than can be conveyed in WMO headers.) We believe the transition will help Unidata users utilize important additional NOAAport products, including current ones, such as satellite images, and future ones, such as NIDS. Therefore I suggest that--for now--Unidata users view additional NOAAport downlinks as valuable primarily for GINI data and as a means to reduce network loading at the local site. Regarding the latter, a university potentially may reduce the load on its Internet link by using a NOAAport downlink as a primary data source (backed up by an IDD feed). After the aforementioned transition to NOAAport-style headers is 100% complete, we can begin to examine the potential benefits of incorporating additional downlinks into the IDD, perhaps with regional specialization or other new wrinkles. Best regards, Dave