The EU funded SIMDAT project:
components for building the WMO Information System
Matteo dell’Acqua, Météo-France
The EU funded project SIMDAT is developing generic Grid technology for the
solution of complex application problems and demonstrating this technology in
several representative applications, one of which being the access to distributed
meteorological data.
Following the functional requirements of the WMO Information System (WIS), the
partners of the meteorology activity within SIMDAT (Deutscher Wetterdienst,
ECMWF, EUMETSAT, Météo France and the UK Met Office) are developing
software that provides a generic distributed access to any data repository.
The design is based on a series of interconnected nodes, with each node being able to
act either as a Global Information System Centre (GISC) or as a Data Collection and
Production Centre (DCPC). Several nodes can be grouped logically into a virtual
GISC (V-GISC). Each node provides, through its own portal, access to data held in
one or more data repositories, and offers cataloguing services base of the WMO core
profile of the ISO19115 metadata standard. The catalogues held at the various nodes
are fully synchronised and any data available on any of the nodes can be discovered
and retrieved from any of the web portals. Users can search for data by entering a
combination of keywords, geographical coordinates and ranges of dates. The
SIMDAT software is non-intrusive and any existing data repository (archives,
relational databases or simply collection of files), can be integrated.
In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the technologies and standards
used in the project to develop components that can be used as foundations for building
the WIS.