FAA keeps U.S. flying with prognosis from integrated research.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has purchased PROGNOSIS systems management software from Integrated Research (IR) to manage its recently updated international weather messaging system.

For decades, the FAA's Weather Message Switching Center Replacement (WMSCR) system has processed national and international aviation weather information for airlines, airspace systems and other commercial users. The current system also provides up-to-the-minute flight bulletins used for a variety of airspace operations.

In 2002, the FAA partnered with Baldwin Hackett & Meeks, Inc. (BHMI), a specialist in the development of fault-tolerant software applications and an Integrated Research referral partner, to enhance the current system with new and open technology. BHMI was selected after an intensive pilot program that demonstrated the superiority of its HP NonStop-based solution in meeting the needs of the FAA.

"Understandably, after so many years, the WMSCR system is in need of some updating. This is not to say that the current system isn't performing well--it is. But it does not provide the long-term flexibility required for this mission-critical system," explains BHMI senior project manager Jacob Murphree.

"We knew how important it was to create an open environment that supported future hardware and software upgrades, improved on existing system performance, and was not susceptible to failure, which all pointed to the NonStop platform," says Murphree. "Furthermore, we knew how critical it was to ensure optimal performance and availability, and in that respect there's nothing better on NonStop servers than IR's PROGNOSIS."

PROGNOSIS will be used to monitor real-time WMSCR system metrics, such as CPU processes and process availability, along with all the circuits on the X.25 communications protocol.

"The information gathered by the WMSCR system is important to the safety of air traffic around the world. If there's a problem on a particular switched virtual circuit, the FAA needs to know about it, and fast," explains Murphree. "PROGNOSIS gives the FAA a real-time global view into the system, and quickly identifies specific communication issues that need to be rectified. It also monitors the FAA's remote database facility, making sure the backup sites are in complete sync with the active system."

The FAA is also currently evaluating PROGNOSIS in its cross-platform Windows environment, which it uses to access and update a network of Cisco routers.