7.3 Web Services
CDC's systems and data management groups provide the infrastructure and support for CDC's primary and subsidiary web sites. The primary web site (http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/) is generated using a set of document templates which result in a consistent site look-and-feel and ensure compliance with Federal policies and regulations. A recent example of a Federal policy is the prohibition on the use of "cookies," which deposit information on the end user's computer. An example of a regulation is the Federal Acquisition Regulation which implements Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Currently, the CDC webmaster is responsible for tracking these various directives and translating them into meaningful courses of action. Our document structure provides a central point of change if the document layout and navigation schemes need to be modified to comply with changing policies and requirements. This allows local scientists to concentrate on content generation, and not, for example, on the need to add links to "disclaimer" and "privacy" statements. These high-level links are included in the document templates and hence automatically included in any document which is generated using the templates.
The CDC webmaster, and the broader data management group, are also tasked with staying abreast of technology trends in the rapidly evolving area of web site architecture and management. CDC actively participates in and often helps organize opportunities for web technology exchange, including the OAR Technical Committee on Computing Resources (TCCR), OAR Web Workshops, NOAA Web Workshops, NOAA Tech Workshops, the Federal Webmasters' Conference series, WWW Consortium meetings, and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Interactive Information and Processing Systems (IIPS) Conferences. CDC has also been a leader within NOAA in the investigation and, if warranted, local deployment of Java, JavaScript, Java Server Pages (JSP), XML, webcasts, and digital certificates. The CDC web site underwent a major makeover this year to improve site navigation and to incorporate better support for some of these new technologies.
Subsidiary web sites are those which are largely autonomous sites hosted on the CDC web server. They serve a broader institutional purpose but are maintained by CDC staff. These sites include the COADS web site (http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/coads/), the Metropolitan Denver Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) web site (http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cfc/), the AMS Committee on IIPS (http://www.cdc.noaa/gov/iips/), and a NOAA-level site devoted to the NOAA Strategic Goal on "Seasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction" (http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Seasonal/).
The success of the CDC web site(s) can be measured to some degree by tracking the number of files served, often referred to as "hits." Since its inception, the CDC web server has seen almost exponential growth in the number of documents served to outside users (Fig. 7.5). Current "hits" are in the range of two million per month, about six times the rate of four years ago.
