Don Murray and Tom Yoksas made a presentation to the group about Unidata's technologies and support of CONDUIT. Brent Gordon, NCEP, provided current status and plans for NCEP. The CONDUIT meeting was informal allowing people to discuss their model data needs and questions.

See some of the pending issues in slide 12 of Murray/Yoksas presentation (above). Currently NCEP is serving 42 GB/day to 3 servers, which is down from 50 GB/day, due to the change from GRIB1 to GRIB2. See slide 11 of Brent Gordon's current status and plans (above) for the current data sets provided via CONDUIT. There is room for growth, but we need community input.

Discussion:

The ICWF grids is the only data set remaining in GRIB1, and it was agreed to remove the ICWF grids as soon as possible. The NGM will be removed in 18 months. A question remains about the MRF.

Acceptable latency was discussed. Currently the latency is only 5-32 seconds on Unidata Program Center servers. Hardware recommended includes 12 GB memory with dual processors. Tom Yoksas is the contact <support@unidata.ucar.edu> for current configuration.

A process for eliminating data sets from CONDUIT is needed. The process should include recommendations for new data sets to be added to the CONDUIT data stream. It was suggested that the Unidata Users Committee, representing the Unidata community, take on the responsibility of polling the community for input.

ACTION: Ask the Unidata Users Committee to take on the responsibility of polling the community for CONDUIT data set input, which includes deletion of data sets not being used, and addition of new data sets desired for research and education.

Craig Cochell OU-IRADS, indicated that the private sector would like to participate in CONDUIT. CONDUIT was launched out of the need to distribute high resolution model grids to the academic community for use in research and education. Unidata is funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide data services, tools and cyberinfrastructure leadership to advance the Earth system science and enhance educational opportunities. Unidata cannot directly support the private sector.

NOMADS might be considered for provision of some data, particularly non real time data for case studies, etc. Overall, additional documentation needs to become available for the community to make wise choices of their data needs and approaches for data access and distribution.

Metrics are needed for CONDUIT to enable NCEP, NWS, and Unidata to continue providing the service to the community. Unidata has been keeping statistics on CONDUIT. They have been available, but Unidata will be sure that they are useful to NCEP and NWS.

It was suggested that CONDUIT information be included in LDM training workshops.

The AMS meeting may not be the best venue for future CONDUIT meetings, due to lack of attendance and conflicts during the Annual meeting.