NOAA

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NOAAsNational Weather ServiceNDFD Web Services

• Robert Bunge
• Office of the Chief Information OfficerNational
  Digital Forecast Database Technical Workshop
• August 13, 2003

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NWS Digital Forecasting

• What will we cover?
• Overview
• What is a web service
• Overview of web service protocols standards
• Proposed core NDFD web services functionality

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NWS Digital Forecasting

• Overview
• Web Services provide access to a slice of NDFD
• Designed to provide a standard set of services
  for NWS, partner and public use
• Subject to Directive 10-102, requirements for new
  or enhanced products and services
• Experimental period
• Public comment period
• Evaluation of comments, decision if it should
  become operational and official

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NWS Digital Forecasting

• What is a web service?
• Available on the Internet
• Machine to machine messaging
• Uses standardized XML messages
• Operating system independent
• Self describing via common XML grammer
• Discoverable via webpages, directories, etc

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NWS Digital Forecasting

• Overview of web service protocols and standards
• Messages in standard XML format
• Simple Objects Access Protocol (SOAP)
• Allows remote user to run application
• http//www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/
• Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
• XML message that describes a SOAP service
• http//www.w3.org/TR/wsdl

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NWS Digital Forecasting

• Overview of web service protocols and standards
• Universal Description, Discovery and Integration
  of Web Services (UDDI)
• Allows for discovery of a web service
• http//uddi.org/specification.html

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NWS Digital Forecasting

• Proposed Core NDFD Web Services Offerings
• Numeric Forecast
• Return of raw elemental data within xml
• Called by Lat/Long
• Selection by element
• Worded Forecast
• Return of worded forecast within xml
• Called by Lat/Long
• Icon Display
• URLs to Icons, brief description within xml
• URL to Forecast at a Glance Page
• Called by Lat/Long

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NWS Digital Forecasting

• Other Possible Offerings
• Area Icon Display
• URLs to Icons, brief description for NWS zones
• URL to Forecast at a Glance page
• Called by NWS zone number (?)
• Likely to be a flat xml file that is updated
  regularly

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NWS Digital Forecasting

• NWS XML Schema Information
• Basic principle is to use existing schemas when
  they exist and appear to be widely accepted
• However, some XML schema development underway
  now
• Plans include publishing of schema via OASIS or
  other similar process

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NWS Digital Forecasting

• Summary
• NWS NDFD webservices will use widely accepted
  formats and standards
• Prototypes in development stage now
• Subject to normal NWS directives related to new
  products and services