20020926: UFRJ as a primary IDD redistribution point for Brazil

>From: Unidata User Support <address@hidden>
>Organization: Unidata Program Center/UCAR
>Keywords: IDD MeteoForum UFRJ

Hi David,

If you are not the appropriate UFRJ person to contact about
participation in the Unidata Internet Data Distribution (IDD), please
pass this note along to the appropriate person.

This letter is intended to open discussions with the Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro on the possibility of becoming a top level
relay node for Brazilian universities that would like to participate in
the Unidata IDD.  What I have in mind is creating an IDD-Brazil
where the UFRJ plays a pivotal role.

Unidata is currently providing data in near-realtime to two different
universities in Brazil:  Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and
Universidade Federal do Para.  Dr. Jose Ricardo Santos de Souza
(Ricardo) <address@hidden> of the UFPA has relayed to us interest by
other Brazilian universities in data available through the IDD.  In
working with Ricardo, I have had the chance to become well familiar
with the capabilities of the Brazilian national network, RNP.  It seems
that the network Point of Presence (POP) for Brazil that is closest
electronically to IDD relay nodes in the United States is in Rio De
Janerio.  This makes the UFRJ the logical choice for the main relay
point for IDD access for other Brazilian universities.  The network
connections from the US to Rio are literally twice as fast (in terms of
latency) as the connection to the UFPA in Belem, for example.

I have had great success in the past couple of months in setting up
the UFPA to receive a variety of data available in the IDD: satellite
imagery from both GOES-East and GOES-West, all of the observational
data available from the Global Telecommunications System (GTS), and
all of the global model data available in the NOAAPORT broadcast
generated by the US National Weather Service.  In the coming weeks,
we will be adding a satellite sector focused on Brazil to the
set of satellite imagery we are already shipping in the IDD.  We
also have plans for attempting to ship some high resolution model
output (the 1 degree global AVN initializations, for instance) to
the UFPA.  The high resolution model data would be easier to send
to UFRJ and then relay it to UFPA, so your participation as a toplevel
relay node would be most helpful in this endeavor.

Do you think that the UFRJ would be willing to act as the top level
IDD relay node for Brazilian universities?  If yes, we are willing
to help you tune your LDM installation and set it up for relaying.

Again, if you are not the appropriate person to discuss expanding
IDD participation at UFRJ, please pass along this note to the 
appropriate person.

Thank you for your time.

Tom Yoksas