WIS2.0, how to define successful Transition?

1. Introduction

The WMO Information System (WIS) was established to provide an integrated approach suitable for all WMO Programmes to meet the requirements for routine collection and automated dissemination of observed data and products, as well as data discovery, access, and retrieval services for weather, climate, water, and related data produced by centres and member countries in the framework of any WMO Programme. After a decade of implementation, most products and services registered in WIS relate only to real-time information, primarily associated with the World Weather Watch Programme. Changes in data supply patterns and user expectations over the past decade present new challenges that the current WIS struggles to meet. At the same time, changes in technology (e.g. cloud computing infrastructure, messaging, search engines, web services) present new opportunities.

WIS 2.0 will provide users with seamless access to diverse information from a wide range of sources and will enable weather, water, and climate information to be related to socioeconomic and other contexts. Through an open ecosystem of tools, applications, and services, WIS 2.0 will allow all information providers to manage, publish, and share their data, products, and services, and will allow all users to develop value-added services and new products.

The purpose of this document is to provide an updated implementation plan describing the transition strategy to WIS 2.0 that considers priorities based on the management of risks and benefits.

2. Issue

The goal of the transition strategy is to figure out what structure will be used to manage the transition from the existing WIS to WIS2. This will give us the assurance that the new arrangements will work at go-live and beyond, particularly that they will be delivered in a timely and reliable manner. The approach must strike the correct balance between providing a speedier and more reliable migration to WIS2 while minimizing the risk of system disruption.

The transition strategy should reduce the risks associated with the new laws' implementation to a manageable level. It should also be clear and understandable, with contingencies in place to deal with any issues that arise in a timely and cost-effective manner.

3. Scope for the transition strategy

• GTS transition/migration

• WIS2 Monitoring

• WIS2 metadata

• Communication and engagement

• Implementation arrangements

4. Transition options

There are two high-level approaches available: a big bang or a phased approach.

The big bang transition strategy calls for all centers to implement all elements at the same time. However, the phased transition approach means that the implementation would not be fully implemented at the same time.

Given that not all centers have the same skills and facilities, as well as the operational aspects of WIS and the risks involved in a big-bang approach, a phased transition approach appears to be the best option. It can help to divide the work into more manageable work packages, reducing the risk of overall delivery failure.

5. Transition

5.1   GTS transition

The GTS is an integrated system of point-to-point circuits, meteorological telecommunication centres and data distribution systems organized on a three-level basis, namely:

• The World Meteorological Centers: Melbourne, Moscow and Washington : a high-speed meshed network that connects three world centres and a selection of Regional Telecommunication Hubs so that the Regions are effectively interconnected through the global system;

• The RTHs: Algiers, Beijing, Bracknell, Cairo, Dakar, Exeter, Jeddah, Nairobi, New Sofia Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Offenbach, Prague, Toulouse, and Tokyo.

• The National Meteorological Telecommunication Networks (NMTNs)

GTS's technology is very old, and it cannot support the evolution of data distribution and data production from global centers. As a result, the implementation of WIS 2.0 is both urgent and necessary for the implementation of GBON.

The GTS transition strategy to WIS 2.0 will be carried out in stages, each of which will be defined and manageable:

• Develop WIS2 node in a box (Plug and play tools)

• Identify pilot centers

• Build any-to-any circuits based on WIS2 node in parallel with GTS

• Create a robust and long-lasting process of data collection on GISC, Cloud or both

• Develop monitoring tool to ensure the very high availability, robustness and performance of the system

• The use of industry-standard data distribution methods and protocols such as secure file transfer and publish-subscribe messaging will replace traditional Global Telecommunication System (GTS) message switching as the foundation for operational, real-time data exchange.

 To be considered:

• Time-critical and operation-critical delivery

• Backups

• Business continuity 

• Sustainability

• Communication

• Resistance to change

• Engagement with regional associations, GISCs

5.2   Roles and responsibilities:

5.3   WIS2 Monitoring

Monitoring and evaluation are the processes that allow to assess how changes evolve over time (monitoring), and how effectively WIS2 was implemented and whether there are gaps between the planned and achieved results (evaluation).

To ensure a successful transition, a monitoring tool is needed to follow progress of WIS2 implementation. Setting up a monitoring system for transition, therefore, requires:

1. Formulating objectives: identifying in clear, measurable terms the results being sought and developing a conceptual framework for how the results will be achieved.

2. Identifying indicators: for each objective, specify exactly what is to be measured along a scale or dimension.

3. Setting targets: for each indicator, specifying the expected level of results to be achieved by specific dates, that will be used to judge performance.

4. Monitoring results: developing performance-monitoring systems that regularly collect data on the results achieved.

5. Reviewing and reporting results: comparing actual results against the targets (or other criteria for judging performance).

6. Integrating evaluations: conducting evaluations to gather information not available through performance monitoring systems.

7. Using performance information: using information from monitoring and evaluation for organizational learning, decision making, and accountability.

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5.4   WIS2 metadata development during the transition

The current WIS is based on a catalogue of metadata. In order to find a particular dataset, users have to connect to a GISC portal and use their search tools. It means that the “gates” to enter the WIS are the GISCs. However, nowadays, the “gates” for all content on the Internet are the search engines such as Google and Bing. Therefore, making data available to users will require the WIS to use the de facto standards and common practice of the Internet. The catalogue should therefore be searchable and accessible via the common “gates” of the Internet, the search engines.

WMO programmes data is by nature geospatial, and temporal. The W3C Spatial Data on the Web Best Practices provides guidelines on how to best enable spatiotemporal data to lower the barrier for users, search engine optimization, and linked data.

The current evolution in data exchange standards, systems, and architecture is grounded in the following:

·       Resource-oriented architecture (ROA)

• Representational State Transfer (REST)

• JSON and HTML as core web formats

Following this trend is the current evolution of OGC interface standards via OGC API, which are a clean break against legacy standards, and implement APIs using core, broad industry approaches (W3C, OpenAPI, JSON, etc.).

Having a well-defined metadata strategy is an essential component for WIS2 success. The following points should be considered while developing a metadata strategy:

•   Flexibility and extensibility of metadata standards and procedures: Metadata standards are generally designed either to respond to the needs of a specific community of users or to serve a broad range of communities and information needs

• Consider granularity to provide different levels of information

• Consider a mechanism to integrate external resources seamlessly, including sharing of metadata creation and maintenance

• Metadata retrieval should include simple and advanced search options

• Consider metadata quality control

• Methods to consolidate metadata from multiple sources

• Consider multi-lingual catalogues

During the transition phase a specific organization is required to develop the WIS2 catalogue:

•  Requirement team comprised from all Standing committees

• Development team to develop standards, procedures, and implementation plan

To ensure a successful WIS2 catalogue development and avoid the problems that plagued WIS1, observation metadata can be created via the OSCAR interface, while other metadata can be created in collaboration with data providers.

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5.5   Communication and engagement

In order to enable the WIS2 deployment, good communication and involvement are required. The following considerations should be made:

•   Engage early for success, provides the opportunity to understand the big picture, the arguments, the players

• Share the big picture with all the stakeholders from the start

• Create marketing packages for effective communication

• Make sure there is widespread communication

5.6   Implementation arrangements

To monitor and coordinate the progress of implementation of WIS2, the implementation plan is updated to track and coordinate the progress of WIS2 implementation.

Pilot GISCs for WIS2 monitoring, create a standard reporting format for each action and distribute it to WIS2 pilot GISCs, Standing Committee and INFCOM. Furthermore, the practice of using a scorecard to measure the progress of implementation should be implemented.