[IDD #YPR-198833]: Educational entity needing meteorological data and software.

Hi Stonie, Mike and Steve,

I drove Stonie's email into our inquiry tracking system so that the
appropriate people in Unidata will be able to jump in and help out
when needed...

Stonie wrote:
> I am emailing you to introduce Mike Johnson and Steve McCauley from El
> Centro College in Dallas to you.  They had contacted us about getting
> a NOAAPort system, but after discussing the needs with Mike, I think
> this is really something for UNIDATA, utilizing the IDD and your suite
> of software.
> 
> Mike is the Director of campus IT . . . . basically they need a data feed
> (IDD) and display software (IDV?) for classroom instruction.  Steve is
> the instructor.  They do have the limitation of being a Windows shop
> . . . . I am not sure about the LDM/IDD (cygwin?) Windows capabilities,
> but I would assume that IDV could run under Windows, being Java-based.
> 
> Mike - Steve's phone is (303) 497-8648, and Tom's is (303) 497-8642.

Hi Mike and Steve,

Stonie's brief description of your setup and needs suggests that you
could take good advantage of our Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) visualization
and analysis software and may even not need to receive, process or store
data locally.

My view on the receipt of data via the Unidata Internet Data Distribution
(IDD) system is based largely on you El Centro College being a Windows shop.
The software that we make available for ingest (NOAAPort reception system)
receipt (Internet Data Distribution system), decoding (decoding portions
of GEMPAK, McIDAS, netCDF decoders, etc.) and serving (McIDAS ADDE, THREDDS
Data Server (TDS) and/or RAMADDA) of the full variety of data available in
the IDD requires, for the most part, *nix (Linux/Unix) systems on the back end
(this is not true for the TDS or RAMADDA, but it is for McIDAS ADDE).  If
setting up and operating a *nix system is not something that you can/want
to do, you might see if the IDV's access to data available on remote servers
is sufficient for your classroom instruction, laboratory and research needs.

Some questions:

- are you, in fact, a Windows only shop?

  I mean, are you adverse to setting up and running a Linux system on which
  a variety of packages we offer would run.

- how many students are typically in your classes in which you would
  like to display/analyze meteorological data?

- what kind of network bandwidth does your department in El Centro have?

- what flavor(s) of Windows are you running on classroom/lab machines?

- how much memory do your Windows machines have

To get started, I suggest that one or more of you:

- register with the Unidata website, www.unidata.ucar.edu

  Click on the Register link at the upper right of our homepage and
  follow instructions for registering.  Please make sure to identify
  your institution as a college/university/degree granting institution
  as this will ease granting access to the tools that we offer

- download the latest release of the IDV to one or your Windows machines

  I suggest installing the IDV on a Windows 7 64-bit instance that has
  at least 4 GB of RAM

- look through our online information on the IDV to get a flavor for the
  kinds of things you can easily do using data remotely served elsewhere

- get back to us with any questions you have

We look forward to working with you!

Cheers,

Tom
--
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Unidata User Support                                    UCAR Unidata Program
(303) 497-8642                                                 P.O. Box 3000
address@hidden                                   Boulder, CO 80307
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Unidata HomePage                       http://www.unidata.ucar.edu
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: YPR-198833
Department: Support IDD
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed