Technical Information
NinJo was developed by a consortium of National Meteorological Services with assistance of experienced IT companies. Thus, it is assured that the requirements and recommendations of the users and administrators are best considered in the design and development of the system. Distributed offices with central servers in the headquarters are common practice at the consortium members together with the need for a comprehensive workstation for
- integration of various data sources and formats,
- production of standard and customized products, and
- facilities to edit e. g. observational data and model outputs.
General Architecture
NinJo is a client-server system built using an extremely modular and scalable design. On the client’s side there is the interactive NinJo application, which is installed locally on the user's computer. Batch applications can be implemented on the server as well as on the client’s side. All other data is managed by the relevant server entities and administered centrally. The import/export modules for the different data types as well as decoding of the incoming data also run at the server level.
Optional integration of the GloBUS decoding system allows further optimisation to be achieved. GloBUS was developed on behalf of the German Meteorological Service (DWD) for processing incoming data.
One particularly noteworthy feature is its programming entirely in Java. This allows NinJo to be implemented on different operating systems (e.g. Unix, Linux and Windows). This dispenses therefore with troublesome porting of source code onto particular operating systems.
In principle NinJo is able to run on any computer from a powerful laptop to a supercomputer. However, there needs to be adequate hardware for the expected volume of data. Both the client’s computer and server need to have sufficient main memory and processor speed. In addition, a sufficiently fast network connection is required.
- NinJo consists of many individual components, which makes it very scalable.
Hardware requirements
Hardware platform
The used hardware platform should be Intel based (AMD possible, too) and a x86 architechture.
Client/server architechture
The NinJo software is client/server based. Servers can be split up. For higher data throughput, it is recommended to use a two server setup and split the various NinJo data servers on these two machines.
Supported operating systems
Both server and client software run on Windows and Linux systems. The preferred operating system for the NinJo servers is Linux, for the NinJo Client Windows.
Integrated data formats
NinJo processes the data which is required by the weather services that use NinJo. As NinJo has a very modular and scalable design, new data formats can easily be integrated if a new user wishes it, as long as a layer is available for visualizing the data.
Already integrated are the following data formats:
Observation data:
FM12-16,MREP, FM18, FM20, FM22, FM32-40, FM71, FM72, FM75, FM76, SIGMET, AIRMET, GAMET, TAF, GAFOR, tesac, bathy and AMDAR, GTS WMO alphanumerical code forms via GloBUS4NinJo decoding, BUFR3, BUFR4, swn (asynoptic stron wind reports), nds (dwd precipitation data reports), mch_db (Meteoswiss decoded bulletins), swiss (road weather observations DWD)
Point forecast data:
native formats, easily integrated (e.g. FIMOS (DWD point forecast), O_ (DWD point forecast), Hirlam (KNMI point forecast))
Lightning data:
Vailsala, SFERICS, sfuk, ncm, cldn, ilrn, meteorage, dmildn, SAFIR, UALF
Storm cell data:
CARDS, KONRAD, TRT, sac, rdt, TITAN
Satellite data:
GeoTIFF, PNG, JPG, HDF5, …
Radar data:
DWD radar format, TITAN, MIRAN, TRT, CARDS as OPERA BUFR, NetCDF, Beijing 08 compatible
NWP model data:
GRIB, GRIB2 (in NinJo 1.3) regular grids
Trajectory data:
DWD format, KNMI format
Station catalogues:
WMO, ICAO, local, native via database, generic tool available to create defined catalogue
Bulletins:
decoded and in original form
Already processed NWP models
Common:
GME, LM, aLM07_Europe, HIRLAM, GEMGLOBAL, GEMLOCAL, ETA, ECMF, GFS, SGLM0, SGGM0, SGGM1, SGGLO, GME_DWDSAT, LME, LME_DWDSAT
Danish models:
T15, S05, Q05, WAMNATL, CMOD, Hirlam-S05, Hirlam-T15, Hirlam-Q05, Hirlam-A15, Hirlam-A30, WAM-Nordatlanten, WAM-Europa, WAM-Middelhavet, WAM-Danmark, CMOD-Grov, GMOD-Fin, HYCOM-Norge, HYCOM-Irland, ECM-NordligHalvkugle, ECM-SydligHalvkugle, ECM-NordatlantBolger, ECM-Overfladedata, UKMet-LAM, UKMet-Global
DWD models:
WAFC, LFPW, KWBC, SGLMo_DWDSAT, SGGM0_DWDSAT, SGGM1_DWDSAT, EGRR, EGRR_F, LMK, BMOS, PEPS, RADVOR-OP, LME_OSA, GME_OSA, LMK_DWDSAT, LME_LPDM, LMI_LPDM, GME_LPDM
Swiss derivates:
aLMo7_Alps, aLMo2_Europe, aLMo2_Alps, aLMo2_Swiss
GeoInfo models:
RLM1-12
ECMWF derivates:
ECMWF_Globe, ECMWF_Europe, ECMWF_Alps
Available map projections
- Lon/Lat projection
- Geograph Grib projection
- Grib projection
- Gnomonic projection
- Hammer projection
- Kepler projection
- Lambert Cylindrical projection
- Lambert Polar projection
- Local Lambert Conformal projection
- Mercator projection
- Polar Stereographic Grib projection
- Poloar Steographic projection
- Rotated Geograph Grib projection
- Stereographic projection
- Stereographic South projection
- UTM projection
NinJo comes with a set of configured maps. Own maps can easily been created with the MapCreator tool, which comes with NinJo.