5.3.2: IT Infrastructure
A modern IT infrastructure for a scientific enterprise Other Information:
NOAA's mission requires a transformed, agile, service-oriented, and secure IT infrastructure to propel its scientific and
operational goals with advanced computing capabilities. World-class delivery of reliable and scalable IT services is essential
to meet growing demands and to efficiently process and disseminate ever increasing volumes and types of environmental information.
High-performance computing (HPC) enables environmental modeling, and thus, all of NOAA's predictive products, including weather
forecasts, climate analyses, and the transfer of mature research systems developed into operational capacities in collaboration
with academic, private sector and other government partners. Consumer and professional use of social networking sites is becoming
increasingly (and inextricably) intertwined. Modern collaborative technologies are essential to enabling NOAA's diverse and
widely distributed staff to share knowledge more effectively, and to enable customers and stakeholders to engage with the
extended NOAA community transparently and effectively. To achieve this objective, NOAA will implement enterprise-wide solutions
to gather, process, and disseminate environmental information; enable effective collaboration; and improve operational cost
effectiveness, efficiency, and service quality. NOAA is committed to modernizing its IT infrastructure through the development
of a common standards-based architecture and through a consistent approach to making decisions based upon the service needs
of NOAA staff and stakeholders. NOAA will make available computing platforms, networks, data storage, and information analytics
to collect, analyze, and disseminate efficiently and securely the massive quantities of observational data needed for reporting
and for warning the public and partners. Significant and sustained investments will be required to establish and maintain
an HPC architecture that meets NOAA's weather and climate modeling needs. Desktop services will include cloud computing, virtualization,
and state-of-the-art business intelligence products and tools. NOAA will provide secure and flexible social media environments,
collaboration tools, and web portals to promote innovation across mission, line, stakeholder, and user boundaries. The Agency
will support unified communications by efficiently and reliably switching traffic across formats, media, and channels. NOAA
will support responsible and sustainable IT development in alignment with the Agency's overall sustainability efforts to "go
green." Over the next five years, evidence of progress toward this objective will include: * Adoption of a common architecture
and framework for IT services and solutions; * Delivery of critical high-performance computing capabilities for evolving environmental
modeling requirements; * Implementation of enterprise-wide and holistic protection from cyber security threats; and * An IT
workforce that possesses the competencies required to fulfill NOAA's evolving scientific mission.
Indicator(s):
|
