AUGUST 2007
FAWN News
Since the last FAWN update we have made many strides in improving our Program. FAWN has gained new employees, improved our office space, installed new towers around the state of Florida, and continued to improve upon our previous towers.
William (Rick) Lusher was appointed Director of FAWN on July 13, 2007. Rick received his BS and MS degrees in Meteorology from Florida State University in 1996 and 1999, and was K-12 Outreach Coordinator for the FSU Meteorology Department from 1999-2004. He also has experience as a science teacher, as well as a NWS weather observer. Rick is excited about his role as Director of FAWN and is a firm believer that it takes a strong team to produce excellent results. He hopes to be out and around soon, and looks forward to interacting with many FAWN users and potential users.
Speaking of a strong team, we have added key personnel in other areas as well. In addition to our Database Manager Andy King, Brent Ferraro has recently joined us as Webmaster, and Steve Clay as Application Developer. Brent and Steve bring a wealth of web-design and programming expertise to the FAWN team. Program Assistant, Lara Hines, maintains our inventory, conducts research, and assists with maintenance of financial concerns. Field Site Supervisor, George Braun, Field Site Technician, Lee Staudt, and Technician Assistant, Karrissa Holtz make sure all sensors and communication equipment are functioning properly, visiting each weather site perform routine / preventative maintenance more that 4 times a year. FAWN is proud of its outstanding team of professionals that allow the system to collect, process, and distribute weather information.
We have settled into our new space in the Webb Livestock Pavilion, which was obtained from IFAS IT to house all the FAWN software development and administration staff and equipment.
FAWN also relocated the lab and warehouse from Apopka to Citra October last year increasing capabilities to assemble & maintain equipment.
Work on updating our web and data servers continues. A pair of primary production servers has been installed in the University’s Central Networking Services (CNS) datacenter in Bryant Hall. We are in the process of moving our websites and databases onto those servers, and hope to be operating exclusively on these servers soon.
Both AgClimate and FAWN have implemented software testing and staging servers to ensure all software is developed and tested adequately before being placed in the production environment. We are also working to implement an additional server to document and track source code versions. A GIS server is planned to allow for ARCGIS development of future applications.
Both FAWN field data collection servers are operational and collecting data. The primary server resides in the FAWN offices in Gainesville, processing and archiving data. We are working to implement a pair of servers for load balancing, failover and backup of the primary systems. These servers will mirror the primary servers and we are working with CNS to find a location for them. Placement will most likely be at a site remote from the Gainesville area to ensure continued operation of the AgClimate/FAWN websites in the event of a major fault in the primary systems.
The Field Site Technicians (Lee Staudt, George Braun, and Karrissa Holtz) have been busy working on the FAWN towers. They recently upgraded seven towers by installing guy wires (for compliance with UF safety standards) and are continuing to maintain the rest of the FAWN towers. They have also been busy relocating towers for better data communications or facility land-use changes. FAWN has also installed a new tower in North Port as well as new humidity sensors on several towers. Shortly, a new tower will be installed in Clewiston, which will result in a total of 35 sites.
