A HISTORY IN COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY EVOLUTION
James L. R. Fenix
NOAA/National Weather Service
Silver Spring, Maryland
1.
THE EARLY YEARS
The
National Weather Service (NWS) Gateway is today a major component
of the NWS Telecommunication Gateway (NWSTG). The Gateway began
as a manual data collection and distribution communications
center in Washington, D.C., during the Second World War. In
1942 the Joint Meteorological Committee was established and
a Central Analysis Center was created in support of the war
effort. By 1944, the U.S. Weather Bureau, Washington, D.C.,
communications center used three teletypewriter machines to
accomplish its mission.
By
October 1947, the International Meteorological Organization
was reformed, and
the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) was established
in Geneva, Switzerland. This new organization established the
Global Telecommunication System (GTS) within the World Weather
Watch in 1951. Through international agreements for the exchange
of meteorological data, communication circuits were established
with the U.S. Weather Bureau from various international meteorological
centers. The exchange became well established by the mid 1950's
and the Washington center was starting to became one of the
first GTS Regional Telecommunication Hubs (RTH) for the WMO
World Weather Watch Program.
The
U.S. Weather Bureau, now part of the Environmental Science Services
Administration, established its communications center in the
Suitland Federal Center in suburban Washington, D.C. In 1954
the Weather Bureau, Navy, Air Force, MIT, and U of Chicago formed
a Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Forecast Unit at Suitland
MD adjacent to this growing source of raw meteorological and
hydrological data. Here the communications center was now operating
nine Teletype Corporation teletypewriters including four Model
28 Automatic, Send/Receive (model 28ASR); four Model 28 Receive
Only (model 28RO); and one Model 19 Automatic Send/Receive (model
19 ASR).
Among
other circuits, these teletype machines were connected to a
local administrative circuit, a circuit connecting local forecast
offices, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), the predecessor
organization to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and
a military weather circuit. The military was a provider of significant
amounts of data collected through an extensive network of radio
receiver sites to intercept foreign weather broadcasts. The
CAA also provided data from foreign locations through the WMO's
GTS. Included in these connections were radio links to some
overseas locations such as Brazil. Most of these circuits operated,
using punch paper tape, at a speed of 74 baud (100 words per
minute), using WMO alphabet 2 (BAUDOT) code. The Washington
center was now in the early stages of a major WMO RTH.
2.
THE AUTOMATED SWITCH
The
Weather Bureau Washington communications switch by mid 1960
was connected to over 23 FAA Service O circuits, 6 Service C
circuits, 60 Service A circuits, 4 RAWARC circuits, and several
facsimile circuits.
The
military line to the Air Force located at Tinker Air Force Base,
Oklahoma, was an automated computer-to-computer directly connected
circuit to the Gateway IBM 2908 controller operating through
a RIXON modem at 3600 bits per second. This was the first high-speed
communications circuit for the center in Suitland, Maryland.
The
Weather Bureau Communications (WBC) Center, well established
in Suitland, Maryland, by early 1965, was feeding the Joint
Numerical Weather Prediction Center (JNWP) with the observational
data needed to make surface and upper air analysis and forecast
charts. The JNWP was jointly operated by the Weather Bureau
Office and the U.S. Air Force Weather Service. The communications
center began passing observational data to the JNWP by punching
cards from paper tape and reading them into an IBM 1401 computer.
The electrical delivery of data directly into a computer was
developed in mid 1966. This capability started the true automation
of the WBC center in Washington, D.C.
By
early 1966, the center acquired two IBM 360 model 30 computers
that were tied
to the communications switching center teletype circuits with
electrical interfaces provided with an IBM 2702 communications
controller and a modified IBM 2908 communications controller
for unique weather protocols. These communication controllers
came with the delivery of the IBM 360 model 30's in 1966. The
machines collected all of the observational data and placed
the data on MEMOREX 2314 disk drives for computer ingest into
the new Automated Data Processing software where data recognition
and decoding was accomplished. The IBM 360 mainframe was running
a new IBM communications software operating system called Communications
Control and Applications Program (CCAP). This software was heavily
modified for weather data processing. The software provided
the data for the JNWP model software and was the central nucleus
for true automated data switching between the many circuits
connected to the communication controllers . The IBM 2702 replaced
the manual tearing of paper tape and the FAA lines [Service
A, C, and O] feed directly into them at 100 words per minute.
The
first international high-speed circuit was implemented with
Tokyo, Japan, in July 1969, using Fujitsu modems at 2400 bps
with 75 baud back channels utilizing the WMO bisync protocol
(alphabet 5). In January 1970, a 2400 bps link was installed
with Europe connecting Washington with Offenbach, then Paris,
and on to Bracknell. The Washington RTH was the only automated
computer center as a component on the GTS at this time. The
generated products from the JNWP included manually drawn weather
charts that were transmitted on analog facsimile circuits using
ALDEN Corporation flat-bed scanners.
3.
UPGRADE
Three
IBM 360 model 40's were purchased in early 1970 to upgrade the
capabilities of the message switching functions. They were soon
integrated into the communications center and the CCAP software
was enhanced to transmit and receive message traffic automatically
on many additional lines to replace the manual switching methods
using the teletypewriters paper tape for receipt and transmission.
A new IBM 2703 communication controller was added to the IBM
360 for direct line attachment. These communication controllers
supported interface speeds from 50 baud BAUDOT to 3600 bps ASCII.
The IBM 360 computers were linked together using shared disk
technology operating with the Memorex 2314 disk drives. One
360 model 40 was loaded with a new DOS operating system for
the decoding and relay of the decoded data to the models. Additional
links were installed using the new WMO bisynchronous communication
protocols in ASCII character form, dropping the older BAUDOT
5-level tape code.
By
1974, new communication controllers were installed. They were
Interdata 50 computers with interrupt cards and line driver
software directly connected to the IBM 360 Model 40 computer
mainframes. The NWS was now supporting a major computerized
WMO Regional Telecommunications Hub (RTH) of the growing automated
GTS. This new computer was operated by the Washington RTH and
was the only one located in North America, making it a major
hub of the GTS.
4.
A MAJOR SWITCH
By
late 1974, the Gateway had evolved to a completely automated
switching center utilizing three IBM 360 model 40 computers
for switching and decoding and an IBM 360 model 30 computer
for facsimile processing and transmission. The model 30 was
modified from its role of feeding the National Meteorological
Center (NMC) computer model software to a support role in the
automation of facsimile transmissions and the IBM 360 model
40's took on the task of communications with the NMC. These
same model 40's supported the switching of the majority of the
other circuits, which now numbered close to 90. The WMO international
links had increased in number and lines operated to Brazil,
Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Bracknell, and Toronto. Many of the circuits
connected to the communications center were installed in support
of aviation operations. With the support of the FAA, many lines
had been installed to the Pacific, Central America, and the
Caribbean Area as well as across the United States.
The
national circuits included many FAA circuits including the Automatic
Fixed Telecommunications Network supporting the International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The military (Air force
and Navy) circuits linked the NWS offices throughout the 48
states with data from military bases. The commercial air line
community was supported directly from the IBM 360 Model 40 systems
on dedicated circuits from the IBM 2908 at 1050 bps ASCII with
tailored flight wind products, and the FAA users were provided
GRID data and overseas aviation observations and forecasts for
relay to many users at 2400 bps from their Weather Message Switching
Center located in Kansas City, Missouri. The manual facsimile
broadcasts were changed to automated transmissions in 1975 and
DIFAX encoded methods were employed. This was accomplished with
new Interdata 50 communication controllers which were programmed
especially for analog transmission using NWS designed communication
interface boards. This allowed the removal of the old ALDEN
Corporation flat-bed scanners. The remaining hand-drawn charts
were now done in the World Weather Building miles away from
the communications center. They were transmitted to the facsimile
system on dedicated lines from digitizers and curve plotters
located next to the forecasters.
The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administrative
traffic function, which required manual reading of messages
before switching to local circuits or to the AUTODIN communications
system, was moved to the World Weather Building in 1974, and
new lines connecting the automated message switch in Suitland
with the NOAA message center were installed for exchange of
needed meteorological traffic not received with proper message
identification.
5.
THE GATEWAY
The
1976 time frame saw the development of the Weather Service's
Automation of Field Operations and Services (AFOS) communications
system. The NMC communications switching system began distributing
large amounts of NMC products to the Weather Service field offices
through the Gateway connection to a new Systems Monitoring and
Control Center (SMCC). The use of the name Gateway for the communications
switching system now began. This began the Gateway exchange
of large volumes of centrally produced products for delivery
to the Weather Service Forecast Offices across the United States.
The major international centers were evolving which demanded
larger volumes of data and products to be exchanged. This required
increased circuit speeds and by 1980 many international circuits
were operating at 4800 bps using the WMO ASCII (alphabet 5)
format. The NMC was producing larger and larger global forecast
fields from the models. The military exchange increased and
circuit speeds increased to 4800 bps with dual links installed
for backup with the Air Force's Automated Weather Network located
in Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. Links to Toronto, Canada,
and many federal agencies were now operating at speeds of 4800
bps.
6.
MAJOR UPGRADE PERIOD
The
Gateway began a major upgrade plan in 1979 and a redesign of
the Gateway was undertaken by NMC. By 1982, the Gateway was
again upgraded and the IBM 360 model 30 and model 40's were
replaced with IBM 4341 mainframes. The operating software installed
on the new mainframes was the Virtual Machine (VM) operating
system. This allowed the continuation of the CCAP switching
function as it moved from the IBM 360 model 40 to the IBM 4341.
The lines of communication had grown to 120 circuits and the
interface to the new NMC model producer was changed to a disk
sharing process for rapid exchange of data and products between
the two computer centers. New Concurrent 3210 communication
controllers were designed and programmed between 1979 and 1982
to replace the older IBM 2702 and 2703 controllers driving the
older, low-speed circuits. The Gateway had replaced MEMOREX
2314 disk storage devices with IBM 3330 disks in 1982. The NMC
aviation model was producing forecast fields in a new binary
code form called GRIB by 1986. The WMO newly agreed upon X.25
communications protocol in 1983 was installed at the Gateway
in 1985, after the purchase of the IBM 3705 and IBM 3725 communication
controllers. These devices handled the WMO connections that
operated as ASCII at 4800 bps, 9600 bps, and began to use the
new X.25 protocol.
New
circuits were installed between the Gateway and Tokyo RTH and
between the Gateway and the Bracknell RTH using X.25 protocol
in 1987. At this same time, a suite of new circuits were established.
This was known as the Family of Services data distribution system
and was established to provide the data available at the Gateway
to the general user community. The older 1050 bps speed connections
to dedicated air line users were dropped. The Numerical Products
Service was established for the delivery of new binary GRIB
coded aviation forecast gridded products to the general user
community at 4800 bps using the X.25 protocol. The connection
to the Navy Fleet Numerical Oceanographic Center was upgraded
to X.25 protocol by 1988.
7.
ORGANIZATION TRANSFER
The
Gateway was a part of a new NWS Headquarters reorganization
and was moved on paper into the newly formed Office of Systems
Operations in 1986. This moved the management of the Gateway
from the NMC's Automation Division to the Systems Operations
Center under the Office of Systems Operations. However, it was
left operating at Suitland Federal Office Building Number 4
along with the AFOS Systems Monitoring and Coordination Center.
The
Gateway was now a part of the NWSTG, a major provider of data
and products for the NWS Forecast Offices, a major RTH center
on the WMO GTS Main Trunk Network, a front-end data distribution
center for the NMC, a major aviation meteorological data provider
for the FAA, and the provider of the Family of Services data
streams on 4 separate circuits. The NMC had a role as one of
two World Area Forecast Centers (WAFC) for ICAO-generated products.
An even larger set of forecast products was available, which
caused an increase in data flow. The other WAFC for ICAO support
was Bracknell, England. Thus, there was an increase in the data
exchange between the two centers and this required the Gateway
to increase the Bracknell GTS link line speed to 9600 bps by
1987 and later to 14.4 Kbps to meet the exchange requirements.
The Gateway added new IBM 3375 disk drives for added capacity
in 1987 and in 1988 for the AFOS binary graphics products and
WAFC GRIB.
New
digital graphics products for supporting a new NWS field upgrade
to replace AFOS was started in 1987. The Gateway began the development
of a new interface at 56 Kbps to meet the new Advanced Weather
Interactive Processing System (AWIPS). The initial phase was
a system called the Information Stream for AWIPS NOAAport (ISPAN)
that required multiple virtual circuits for ASCII, BUFR, GRIB,
and Red-Book digital Graphics coded products for transmission
to a major NWS modernization development in Norman, Oklahoma,
and Denver, Colorado. There, new field automated work station
sites were being established and required the data streams ultimately
planned for AWIPS. This initiated the next phase of upgrade
for the Gateway.
8.
THE BIG MOVE
To
accomplish this next upgrade, the Gateway began plans for relocation
from Suitland, Maryland, to a newly built Metro Center II building
in Silver Spring, Maryland. The connection to NMC was changed
from disk sharing to an File Transfer Protocol (FTP) file transfer
bridge in 1989 between the two different operating systems,
as the NMC was MVS and the Gateway was VM/SP. The move also
required the installation of new hardware. The consolidation
of the SMCC, Gateway, NOAA message center and Communications
Control Center (CCC) in one facility on the sixth floor of the
new building was accomplished. The NWSTG was relocated.
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The
Gateway moved from the IBM 4341 computers to HDS 9060 mainframes
in Silver Spring, Maryland. The move was accomplished in July
1992 after the installation of a newly purchased AMDHAL 4745
in 1991 to replace the IBM 3705 and 3725 communication controllers
left behind at Suitland, Maryland, along with the IBM 4341's.
At this time all lines were bridged between Suitland and Silver
Spring and new DataSwitch, Incorporated line switching equipment
was installed at the CCC.
The
new Gateway of 1992 had three HDS 9060 mainframes, three strings
of HDS 7380 disks, and two strings of IBM 3375 disk drives.
The communications controllers were an AMDHAL 4745, two Concurrent
3210 computers, and a CNT-CTC devices with T-1 lines for the
connection between NMC in Suitland and the Gateway in Silver
Spring. A LAN connection was established for TELNET access for
the World Weather Building for use in reestablishing their console
connection to the Gateway host system. Increased data storage
needs required additional disk storage, and new EMC2 RAID storage
technology disk units were installed in 1993. The international
circuits to Buenos Aires and Brasilia were upgraded to X.25
protocol at 9600 bps in 1994, and the link to Tinker Air Force
Base, Oklahoma, (relocated from Carswell Air Force Base, Texas,
in 1993) was upgraded to using the X.25 protocol in 1994 operating
at 19200 bps.
9.
DATA ACCESS
The
Gateway added to its LAN technology in 1994 and introduced FTP
file servers. This began a move to a client/server network centric
architecture operation. Plans were being made in the middle
of 1994 to design the Gateway with extensive downsizing of a
mainframe architecture to a distributed operations on a high-speed
backbone LAN. This change along with the addition of UNIX-based
operating systems and file sharing devices, gives the Gateway
more flexibility for interfacing with newer communication technologies.
By
late 1994, the Gateway had added two new IBM RISC 6000's, a
CISCO 7000 router, and a FDDI Backbone. New file servers supporting
FTP, HTTP, and Gopher software were installed, and large amounts
of data were made available at the Gateway on file servers.
This permitted servers to establish a connection using the Internet.
This established a standard means for data retrieval of documentation
information using Internet browsers and retrieving meteorological
and hydrological data interactively. The access to the data
passing through the Gateway was now available using standard
access methods on any client. The NWS Home Page and other documentation
was made available in early 1995. The forecast offices began
accessing large amounts of NMC model products using FTP over
T-1 TCP/IP and Frame Relay links in 1995.
10.
FIRST FIFTY YEARS
The
first 50 years of the Gateway (1945 -1995) saw the growth from
a small data collection room in Washington to a large computer
facility in Suitland MD. The Gateway began by using the teletype
paper tape for supplying information for hand plotted charts
and ended as a highly automated switching system processing
millions of data characters per day for switching between local
forecast offices and among foreign centers and distributing
model products both nationally and internationally.
11.
THE THIRD UPGRADE
The
third upgrade began to take place in mid 1995. The selection
process resulted in the purchase of an IBM 9673-R32 CMOS switching
engine and LAN based processors for data processing and a new
data base was developed using Sybase SQL architecture in early
1996. A first IBM 9673-R32 system was delivered in October 1996.
New communications with NCEP and the DoD were installed in advance
of the Gateway hardware upgrade. The NCEP moved operations in
1996 to the UNIX platform on Cray computers and the FTP protocol
was used between the Gateway and NCEP on an new 10 mbps FNS
using Ethernet protocol between routers. This process by NCEP
removed their HDS 9080s and the MVS operations stopped production
by early 1997. The DoD connection was upgraded to ATM for NWS
to DoD sites of AFGWC and FNMOC in 1996. The Gateway started
the NCEP DBnet transfer of files from the NCEP site to Gateway
local file servers for use by the NWS field sites directly connected
to the Gateway routers by November 1996.
The
operational Gateway IBM 9672-RB4 system and backup system were
installed October 1997 and made operational in January 1998.
The Gateway HDS 9060s were removed in Early February 1998. The
LAN Website was upgraded and moved to IBM 6000/F50 processors
in April through July 1998 and the OSO File Server was upgraded
on IBM 6000/H50 systems to meet the needs of additional capacity
in July 1998. The final Gateway installation of central switching
engine and LAN based processors combination was in place by
July 1998.