Above are histograms that portray the number of Unidata email
responses for individual topics of support for a one year period
ending April 1, 2008. The histograms are arranged by yearly
activity averages with the highest on the left and lowest on the
right. Each quarter year within the period is depicted from oldest to
newest from left to right. The number of responses has been normalized
to weekly averages so that the support load over the various periods
can be easily compared.
Total support averaged 119 responses/week over the entire year; 159 for
the first quarter; 113 for the second quarter; 95 for the third
quarter; and 109 for the current quarter.
Comments:
The numbers represented in the current plots are measurably less
than in reports for previous meetings due to movement of
activities related to email lists being moved to a different
system.
The LEAD numbers are an underestimate of its
activity since few LEAD email transactions go through
User Support (but the numbers continue to increase).
Support numbers for individual packages, groups, and lists can be seen in
full support statistics.
Some tentative conclusions:
The total support provided by the UPC remains high, and yearly totals
have been steady for the past two years. Overall support
activities vary by somewhat by quarter. Spikes in support for
individual packages is largely correlated with the release
of new distributions, and, for the IDV in particular, jumps after
training workshops.
Support required for the legacy visualization packages GEMPAK and McIDAS
continues to be substantial. Even though GEMPAK is the most
widely distributed analysis application, the IDV support
load exceeds that for GEMPAK and is second behind that for the
netCDF.
Support required for LDM, IDD, and data continues at a high level
and shows some variability throughout the year.
Support for netCDF remains substantial, but is considered modest
given the large number of users of the package worldwide.
The overall higher numbers for outreach reflect inclusion of more
categories of support/outreach provided by Linda and the
high level of activity in organizing a special session for
the AGU Spring 2008 Joint Assembly that will be held
on 27-30 May and a similar session that was
held at the AGU Fall meeting in December, 2007.
Taken as a whole, the support required for visualization packages
(GEMPAK, IDV, and McIDAS) is reasonably comparable to the support
related to data reception (LDM, IDD, noaaport).
Support for any package increases after a new version of the package is
made available.
Notes:
These numbers and conclusions should not be taken too literally, for
several reasons:
For some packages, multiple responses in the same thread may be
bundled into a single archived email. Other packages have each
response in a thread counted separately.
After a new release of software, there may be a flurry of the same
or similar questions, which can be answered in separate emails or in
a single mailing list posting.
The graph primarily represents support of end users and site
administrators, not developers. Support for non-Unidata developers in
projects such as THREDDS, IDV, GEMPAK, and McIDAS requires
significant resources, but is difficult to assess.
Not all support records were indexable for this report. Given this,
the above numbers are an underestimate of the
actual support being provided by the UPC.
