The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Using MetBroker software with FieldServer Matthew Laurenson

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Contents » What is MetBroker » Why use MetBroker to access FieldServer data » What MetBroker tools are available » How does MetBroker access FieldServer data » Which FieldServer data are available through MetBroker

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Database BDatabase A DSS A DSS B The Problem: Lack of standard data formats limits DSS portability

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Database B Database A The Goal: Users in any country can run any DSS

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd What is MetBroker? MetBroker Relational File-based Web-pages /CGI Weather Databases (Heterogeneous) Applications Consistent data access “Driver” for each database

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Existing MetBroker tools: » Retrieve and graph data from one station » Display data from all stations in an area » Calculate the risk of extreme climatic events based on historical data » Display risk of climatic events on a regional basis » Get data directly into Excel spreadsheet

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Retrieve data from any station Retrieves data from any of 12,000 MetBroker-linked stations Weather elements and resolutions available from station Station’s period of operation

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd View daily maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall across a region

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Examine risks of climatic extremes Risk of daily max temp in Bangkok > 34 ° C, 35°C, 36°C...

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Probability of one or more frosts in month based on 25 years data Interested in frosts colder than -3°C Month: March Area around Tsukuba, Japan Weather station locations

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Retrieve data directly into Excel

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd FieldServer data available through MetBroker … 2003/3/8 2:42 0 C C FieldServer XML data structure

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd In comparison to “regular” weather station data... » FieldServers can be easily shifted so location associated with data changes » Data has irregular time intervals » Some new kinds of data (eg images) MetBroker not fully able to handle these differences (but is changing toward supporting)

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Current Data Handling Architecture XML files Relational Database Database Loader Raw data FS Agent System MetBroker (JDBC) (HTTP) FieldServer–specific applications MMS Dataase?

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Why Both Relational DB and Archive? » XML is flexible so can accommodate wide range of data structures, but slow to access randomly » Relational databases offer fast random access and standard access (ODBC, JDBC)

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Options for developing new MetBroker tools » Java developers: » Applets and Swing applications can use JavaBean components » Servlets for easy access from browsers » Access via Java RMI » Other languages (eg Microsoft.Net, PHP, PERL, Delphi…) » Access using SOAP through MetSOAP

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd JavaBean components for rapid applet and Java Swing application development

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Visual Basic client application Application code MS SOAP Toolkit VB function calls VB objects MetSOAP SOAP over HTTP MetBroker Delphi client application Application code Borland SOAP Toolkit Delphi function calls Delphi objects SOAP over HTTP RMI MetSOAP

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Why use MetBroker to access FieldServer data? » Can immediately view and analyze your data with existing MetBroker applications and use services such as interpolation » Combine FieldServer data with other weather data (eg from national meteorological service, or research network) » Utilize new MetBroker applications as soon as they are developed » Develop new software applications to share with or sell to other countries

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd Other brokers and servers » ChizuBroker – online maps » DEMBroker – digital elevation models » ResourceServer – localization system for screen text » CountryServer – national boundaries and regional boundaries

© 2005 The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Ltd For more information on brokers see Thank you