In November of 2015, Unidata released CloudIDV, a cloud-optimized version of the IDV. Since then, our community has expressed interest in the underlying application-streaming technology. In the words of one developer, "We all have legacy software that we'd like to support on new devices." Motivated by this observation, we have released CloudStream. CloudStream allows a developer or scientist to easily package software and/or a custom linux environment in such a way that it becomes ready for use in the cloud. Thanks to Docker, building software for use with CloudStream is no more difficult than configuring and building software in any standard Linux environment.

The Unidata Program has become an offical member of the Open Commons Consortium (OCC).

The OCC, formerly known as the Open Cloud Consortium, is a not-for-profit organization that manages and operates cloud computing and data commons infrastructure to support scientific, medical, health care and environmental research. OCC members span the globe and include over 30 universities, companies, government agencies, and national laboratories.

As a member of OCC, Unidata's initial focus will be participation in the OCC NOAA Data Alliance Working Group, which aims to support the NOAA data commons and the geoscience community interested in the open redistribution of NOAA datasets. (Unidata is also involved with cloud-based access to NOAA data through its collaboration with Amazon Web Services.)

A fully-interactive IDV in a web browser.

As part of the Unidata Program Center's continuing investigations into the use of Unidata technologies in cloud computing environments, UPC developers have created a version of the Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) that runs in a Docker container and displays the IDV interface in a web browser.

The CloudIDV container can be run on any computer that has the Docker containerization software installed — currently linux, MacOSX, and Windows versions of Docker are available. If you are already running Docker on your own system, you can easily experiment with the CloudIDV container. If you're new to Docker, read on for details on how to get started.

The Big Data Project (BDP) is an initiative undertaken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to increase public availability of large volumes of environmental data collected and generated by the agency. As part of the Big Data Project, Unidata is working in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on a demonstration project to provide access to a more than twenty years of archived NEXRAD Level II radar data — augmented continuously with new, real-time data — stored in Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) environment. In addition to assisting AWS with ingesting new data flowing from the NEXRAD sites, Unidata Program Center staff have set up a THREDDS Data Server in the AWS environment to provide services allowing community access to the stored data.

The Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX) is an activity sponsored by the Amercan Geophysical Union (AGU) with a focus on real-world environmental challenges that local communities face within three areas: natural hazards/disasters, natural resources, and climate change. TEX endeavors to build collaborative relationships between scientists and non-scientists and help them design and implement local solutions together.

TEX and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are collaborating to use cloud-computing and Earth and space science to advance solutions to community challenges related to natural resources, climate change and natural hazards. Together, they have issued “Sharing Solutions Challenge” with the title “Using Earth and space science and cloud computing to advance community solutions.” For this challenge, they are looking for projects that have working prototypes that address community challenges using Earth science data or tools. Winning projects will receive $15,000 in grant funds to use AWS on-demand cloud services, Free registration to attend the annual 2015 AGU Fall Meeting, and creative assistance and direction in developing videos that highlight the work.