hide random home http://www.wmo.ch/web/www/cbssoftreg.html (PC Press Internet CD, 03/1996)

WMO Commission for Basic Systems
Registry of Available Software

Abstract

Purpose of the software registry

Methodology and organization

Explanations relating to the form of the software registry

Condensed listing of offered programmes (grouped by software category and sorted by country)


Detailed listing of offered programmes sorted by country

Argentina - France
Germany - Korea
Morocco - Sweden
Thailand - Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

CBS-IX re-activated the concept of exchange of meteorological applications software among Members as it had been endorsed by CBS-Ext.(85). The CBS Working Groups on the Data Processing and on Data Management have conducted technical surveys (1989, 1990, 1991 and 1994) collecting information on meteorological applications software offered and requested by WMO Member countries and proposed to CBS to distribute the information in the form of a "CBS Software Registry" to Members on a regular basis.

CBS-Ext.(90) approved this proposal and invited the Secretary-General to compile and publish the CBS Software Registry.

The technical surveys concentrated on computer programmes for numerical weather prediction and for pre- and post-processing of meteorological data and products. The latest edition (1995) is now available which holds 206 offered programmes. The information is kept in a computer database in the WMO Secretariat and a sorted listing of the database is given in this document. It should help and encourage Members to enter into a fruitful exchange of computer programmes among each other.

If you are willing to share software free of charge that you think would be useful for meteorologists around the world, please register your software by writing to dmcguirk@www.wmo.ch.

PURPOSE OF THIS REGISTRY

In the meteorological community technical and procedural innovations as well as the need to handle the steadily increasing volume of meteorological data that are being exchanged on the GTS motivate more and more Member countries, and in particular the developing ones among them, to employ computers in their routine operations. Certain types of data and products can only be generated, handled, pre-processed, or displayed by means of computers, as the following examples may illustrate:

Meteorological Services wishing to move forward into such domains of meteorological applications will find no other alternative but to resort to automated data processing. However, computers are only worth as much as the software that runs on them. In meteorology, the software required is often highly complex and difficult to obtain, especially in developing countries. Little experience exists with computers in these countries and the know-how in computer programming is just beginning to evolve, and their financial resources are very limited. Although a given amount of money can buy ever higher computer power and better hardware reliability from the industry, the actual benefit of computers can only be attained when appropriate computer programs are available and proficiently applied. Member countries embarking upon the use of automation in their centers may well look for help from outside.

To this end, WMO has undertaken a number of efforts to provide various kinds of assistance in form of donations of computer hardware and applications packages, such as the MSS (Meteorological Messages Switching), graphical display software. These activities are mainly carried out as VCP projects. Support of this type is rather demanding in terms of organizational work, engineering support and, above all, financial resources. This is the main reason why only a relatively small number of countries can actually benefit from these projects in any given financial planning cycle of WMO.

Countries that are somewhat further advanced in their automating activities (so-called "threshold countries") usually have a steadily growing requirement for meteorological applications software to meet newly emerging requests for products in their own country and to stay abreast with procedural changes agreed by WMO (such as changes in codes or amendments in telecommunication procedures). Some of them have recently acquired the capability of handling the X.25 telecommunication protocol for data exchange on the GTS and wish to receive data formatted in GRIB and BUFR. It is still difficult for these centers to get the necessary data handling software for processing the received binary-formatted data.

It is, therefore, important that WMO activates other resources to help Members in acquiring software and related technical assistance. CBS felt that it may be a promising and cost-effective way to encourage Members to exchange software that is already available in meteorological centers. This approach raises a number of questions pertaining to software compatibility and portability.

Three trends in computer applications will make porting of software between different computer centers more and more feasible. First, standardization in the meteorological community has rendered common data formats, data handling and telecommunications procedures. Many basic functions performed by computer programs in meteorological centers are essentially very similar or even identical. This is particularly obvious for real-time functions such as handling of WMO-formatted messages, handling of WMO-coded reports, plotting of station-model and contour charts and for a wide range of non-real-time data management functions. Suitable programs are available in meteorological centers of most developed countries. Second, efforts in WMO in developing WMO-agreed standards for software designing, programming techniques and software documentation will gradually alleviate the level of incompatibility in meteorological computer solutions. Third, international and industry standards spread aggressively and are now more readily accepted in the software laboratories of meteorlogical services than some years ago.

In addition, many computer vendors offer as part of their product line programs for converting a program source code from one industry-specific format to another. These types of tools reduce the amount of work required to adapt computer programs from other systems.

All this will lessen hardware-induced incompatibilities of computer programs. Soon, it may be more rewarding to adapt other center's software to ones own operations vis-a-vis local development or commercial procurement, especially in developing and "threshold" countries. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that an exchange of meteorological application software among WMO Member countries would help Members in obtaining well-proven software modules, standardized design ideas or development methodologies without "re-inventing the wheel" many times over and without big financial investment.

The purpose of th computer sofware registry is:

METHODOLOGY AND ORGANIZATION

The CBS Working Groups on the GDPS and on Data Management organized in 1989, 1990, 1992 and 1994 technical surveys to gather information on software offered to Members and software requested by Members. To this end, questionnaires had been distributed to all Members. The replies were evaluated and stored in the WMO Secretariat. CBS-Ext.(90) and CBS-X welcomed the activities of both working groups and requested the WMO Secretarieat to establish a catalogue containing such data, to keep the catalogue up-to-date and to publish a new edition on a regular basis.

In order to prvide a manageable structure for the exchage a framework of categories has been established, under which the individual computer programs should be grouped. To this end, both the range of computer hardware and the various areas of meteorological software application are cataloged in simplified categories. These sets of categories serve as coarse guidelines for basic comparability and classification of the computer programs.

The computer hardware has been grouped in five categories:

  1. Personal Computer (running MS-DOS/PC-DOS, Windows or OS/2 operating systems)
  2. Advanced Graphical Workstation running UNIX-type operating systems)
  3. Large Minicomputer
  4. Large Mainframe Computer
  5. Supercomputer
The computer programs have been grouped in ten categories:

  1. Process Control Program (automatic scheduler programs to control routine production depending on external parameters such as date, time, data availability, etc.)
  2. Message Switching (programs for meteorological message switching for WMO-formatted messages or AFTN messages, dis-assembly and assembly of bulletins, serving teletype and data lines)
  3. Pre-processing and Data Handling (e.g., programs for decoding, code transformation binary <-> character codes, quality control, monitoring of data availability)
  4. Post-processing (e.g., programs for graphical representation/ visualization of data and products on printer, plotter, hard copy, graphical VDUs)
  5. Numerical Analysis Programs (e.g., hemispherical models, window models, mesoscale and sub-mesoscale models, or models for specific forecasting tasks, mainly for short-range forecasting)
  6. Numerical Forecast Models (e.g., hemispherical models, window models, mesoscale and sub-mesoscale models, or models for specific forecasting tasks, mainly for short-range forecasting)
  7. Other Objective Techniques (e.g, statistical evaluation of model output)
  8. Long-term Archiving of Numerical Results (e.g., programs for packing/unpacking and storage/retrieval of numerical fields, perhaps using GRIB as storage format)
  9. Expert System (Computer programs that use stored information to draw conclusions about a particular case)
  10. Long-term Archiving of Observations (e.g., programs for packing/unpacking and storage/retrieval of observational data, perhaps using BUFR as storage format)
It is hoped that an active co-operation will grow from these activities and that many programs will be exchanged between the meteorological services with automated centers and their counterparts in technologically less advanced countries. CBS envisaged that the exchange of software or provision of related support in the framework of this project, should be arranged as bilateral (multilateral) co-operation between donor country and recipient countries.

EXPLANATIONS RELATING TO THE FORM OF THE SOFTWARE REGISTRY

The replies received from Member countries were transcribed in the Secretariat to a database file. This was done with a view to achieving comparability and objectivity by harmonizing, as far as possible, the terminology used and by supplementing missing or incomplete information whenever this appeared possible. In some cases, descriptive text provided in the section "REMARKS" had to be edited and condensed to fit into the database programme. The rest was kept in the original language. Replies in Russian were translated into English.