{"id":9276,"date":"2016-10-19T09:53:53","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T14:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/?p=9276"},"modified":"2016-10-19T09:53:53","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T14:53:53","slug":"hurricane-matthew-network-reliability-and-public-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/articles\/9276","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Matthew, network reliability, and public safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty years ago when a hurricane approached the coastal United States\u2014or anywhere else in the world for that matter\u2014peak demands for data and analyses from the Tropical Cyclones Research Team<\/a> at the UW-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies<\/a> (CIMSS) could bring the research center\u2019s web servers to a grinding halt. And, says lead scientist Chris Velden, these events would sometimes interfere with servers elsewhere on campus, interrupting the flow of vital information to researchers, forecasters with government agencies around the world, and the public in affected areas.<\/p>\n

But two decades hence, Hurricane Matthew tells a different story: one that outlines the importance of a robust computing infrastructure. This time around, critical access to the tropical cyclone group\u2019s real-time imagery, analysis products, and intensity estimates, was uninterrupted, says Velden, thanks to the support provided by the team of IT professionals at SSEC<\/a> and ongoing improvements to the campus network<\/a> bandwidth that make it possible to quickly move large amounts of data. Collaboration across campus has resulted in a system designed to protect against overloads and failures.<\/p>\n

SSEC systems administrator and network engineer John Lalande reported that on Wednesday, 6 October \u00a0and Thursday, 7 October web server requests peaked at 16 million, seamlessly handling an average of 185 requests per second. With 2,000 to 2,500 simultaneous connections throughout the day\u2014as Hurricane Matthew approached the Florida coast\u2014traffic to the web server more than tripled: from a normal average of 500 Mbps (megabits per second) to 1.5 Gbps (gigabits per second) with peak traffic increasing from 1 Gbps to more than 3 Gbps.<\/p>\n

The graphics below show data transfer rates and throughput activity (transactions per second) during Hurricane Matthew:<\/p>\n

\"data_transfer_matthew_2016\"<\/a>

The data transfer rate to and from the web server that hosts the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones web site (tropic.ssec.wisc.edu)\u2014and other SSEC web sites from 9\/28\/16 to 10\/7\/16. Credit: John Lalande, SSEC.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"throughput_matthew_2016\"<\/a>

The throughput link to campus shows the effect of the increased traffic to (green) and from (gold) the web server that hosts the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones web site (tropic.ssec.wisc.edu) on SSEC\u2019s link to campus. Credit: John Lalande, SSEC.<\/p><\/div>\n

But scientists, agencies, and the interested public were relying on other CIMSS web sites, too. The CIMSS Satellite Blog<\/a>, which disseminates large weather animations and images with explanations and analyses suitable for a broad range of professional and lay audiences, averaged more than 21,000 unique site views and an uptick in data transfer during Hurricane Matthew.<\/p>\n

A GOES-13 water vapor animation of Hurricane Matthew (below) across its life cycle (29 September 2016 to 9 October 2016), was the most visited URL on the CIMSS Satellite Blog during the period with nearly 24,000 hits.<\/p>\n

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