Fairfax, Va., October 23, 2006 — Fairfield Technologies Inc. (FTI), a provider of IT and
Managed Services solutions to government and industry, delivered its results of Phase II funded
research and development to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The project, funded by NOAA’s SBIR program, produced a prototype product for automated
grid computing for use in NOAA networked applications environments.
FTI utilized known and emerging technologies to develop its grid computing application while
participating in federal government technology working groups, including the National Science
Foundation Middleware Initiative (NMI). The Phase II prototype utilizes Globus grid
technology with NMI middleware, and was benchmarked in both Phase I and Phase II
development life cycles with existing National Weather Service (NWS) applications including
the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) in FTI’s development
laboratories. The resulting prototype includes a functional user interface to ease the
configuration of local, self-built computing grids to enable alternative approaches to high
performance computing requirements in constrained resource environments.
FTI’s expertise in weather data applications management derives from over a decade of
experience with NWS integrated forecasting and data management applications and current
performance as a contractor for NOAA operations and maintenance efforts. The company’s
receipt of the Phase II NOAA SBIR contract has enabled FTI to continue its research and
development of advanced application management approaches for constrained networked
applications and environments.
This work is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under
Contract Nos. DG133R-03-CN-0055 and DG133R-04-CN-0149. The views, opinions and/or
findings contained in this document are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as an
official NOAA position, policy or decision unless so designated by other documentation.