CineSat V4.0 is a milestone in satellite data processing
		CineSat 4.0 performs successfully and convincing at many major sites and is well appreciated by its users. It is again performing faster than previous releases, provides more features, and is much more flexible to configure. CineSat is a sound, robust, and high-performance basis for your meteorological research and real-time product generation. Next conference presentation: Come and visit us at the 2010 EUMETSAT Meteorological Conference 20 - 24 September 2010, in Cordoba, Spain
	What's new in CineSat Release 4.0
		This major update is the result of many discussions and user suggestions. Release 4.0 consolidates and harmonizes a number of draft concepts developed during the first years of MSG processing - but also offers a rich bundle of new features and improvements. The completely revised enterprise-ready configuration scheme now supports multi-level cascaded and conditional configuration. This allows setting of enterprise configuration defaults (e.g. logos, overlays, color schemes), easy creation of variations of an existing configuration, and easy moving of applications to different environments. And last but not least, it makes software updating easy and comfortable due to the strict separation of system and user configuration. The software is now available in Standard and Enterprise Editions and with several plug-in modules (read more). Although previous releases have already been exceptionally fast and efficient, CineSat V4.0 has again become significantly faster, and still more flexible and easier to use.   This delivers your real-time data earlier, and reduces hardware costs. This page is a first overview on major update news. A more complete list of new features will follow.
		New in CineSat V4.0     Enterprise-Ready Configuration Techniques Multi-level and cascaded configuration profiles  (e.g. mycompany/mysite/server-common/metop/test-bed) Make processing dependant from conditions (e.g.  server role, user/host name pattern, existence of files, ...) Strict separation of system and user configurations Easily create test beds for your operational servers and new applications Move from development to operations without any  changes Easily switch between configurations and user roles     Keeping Pace with Technology Support for RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 Support for Xen and VMWare virtual machines Optimizations for single and dual QuadCore systems Band-width & safety optimization for network installations Updating made easy:  A single software version supports all your CineSat machines from old RedHat 3 to latest RedHat 5 systems and independently from processor number and types.      Automated Product Extraction New processing chains added (e.g. MOVIE/MPEF/OSISAF) Streamlined chain programming and configuration API Easy configuration of secondary products (e.g. graphics) Forward compatible chain format architecture Easy user configuration management with CinePacks Again several significant speed-ups achieved Start with a server role (used in conditional configuration) Conditional import, export, processing, and cleanup Simplified and rounded-up operator GUI Reporting and profiling tools     Improved Products and Commands New "graphics" & "movie" products with rich options Interpolation of missing lines and speckle filtering Linear combination now with up to 10 images Rich palette of space masking options Improved handling of space in met products and mapping Export of transparent (masked) GIFs Rotated projections added Parallax correction (prototype status)     New Tools cschain - very flexible offline runs of processing chains cscopy - export from data base with remapping & graphics cspack - create a CineSat runtime package csprofile - CineSat configuration profile management cinesat which - find files in configuration profile hierarchy csrole - set default server role for APE startup emcls - list EUMETCast directory content     Enhanced Data Sets Up-to-date country borders City database reviewed and extended Country labels Separate capitals data set     MSG Edition - EUMETCast Compatibility Support of satellite modes and missions Automated switch to backup satellites Import all MSG related products distributed via EUMETCast     POLAR Module Processes EUMETCast METOP AVHRR images Interface to ANA AVHRR navigation software     Streamlined Configuration and Scripting API Simplified chain programming Backward compatibility for V3.x processing chains Restructured configuration tree with many new items Consistent naming scheme for functions and variables  Cleanup of footprint in user's home directory     Modules and Editions Base system ships in standard or enterprise edition MSG Module - specific MSG interfaces & processing POLAR Module - processing of polar orbiting satellites     Easily Interface to Your Data, Systems, Clients, and Partners Read and supply many standard data formats Automatically get and distribute data over the Internet Use partner sites as backup to your systems Combine your own applications with CineSat
	CineSat Editions and Modules
		The base software is now available in Standard and Enterprise Editions and can be extended by optional modules. The Enterprise Edition provides important features for managing, configuring, and operating CineSat in distributed enterprise environments. If not explicitely requested otherwise, updates for existing installations ship as Standard Edition with a time limited preview of the Enterprise Edition. The MSG Edition bundles the base system with all necessary interfaces and functions for MSG processing (MSG module). The optional POLAR module adds METOP AVHRR processing capabilities.
	Managing Complexity
	Top	CineSat software source code has grown by a factor of 3 in size compared to first MSG installations in 2003. Internationally approved software development models rate project efforts to increase super-linear with code size for such inter-disciplinary, critical, real-time applications. The current size of 450.000 condensed lines of code represent a value of more than 100 man years of innovative research, prototyping, and software development. Be aware that only a minor part of the produced software code is actually included in the final software. E.g. in 2008, the new configuration concept had to be prototyped, re-designed, and re-written three times due to incomplete and developing user requirements. Most requirements poured in gradually from different test sites during development, or revealed themselves with prototype implementation and first practical experience. Between 45.000 to 75.000 lines of existing code are due to yearly review, changes, and regression testing, because of changes and extensions in the supplied data, algorithms, and environment (IT architectures and operating systems, modified satellite missions, changed header data and naming conventions, etc). And beside this essential system maintenance, the CineSat team aims to satisfy and surprise users every year with implementations from your wishlist and with new interesting features and products.
	Multi-Level Cascaded Configuration Profiles
		CineSat V4.0 utilizes a hierarchical configuration approach. Starting with the delivered system configuration, you can define any number of alternate configurations - so-called CineSat profiles. E.g. you can add or re-define projections, color maps, chain configurations, imports, exports, and even CineSat programs and scripts. Multi-level dependencies If you link profiles to parent profiles, you can create multi-level dependencies. Parents inherit all their settings to their childs. Easily use parent configurations to adapt them to your personal or project settings. Pre-operational testing support E.g. you may want to test your new Automatic Product Extraction, but with fewer processing chains and without export of results to your end-users. Simply create a new profile that depends on your used APE configuration, re-define the processing chain list, and disable all exports in this child profile. Then you can fire up APE with your special test-bed profile. This scheme is unlimited in the number of parents and therefore far more than a simple system>group>user hierarchy. Enterprise-ready configuration hierarchy You can define company-wide defaults, modify them with site/location specific changes, define common operational server configuration, and several variants for different server setups, like MSG server, METOP server, test and development server, primary/backup servers, etc.
	Top	An important benefit of profiles - beside extending and creating variants of parent configurations - is to adapt to different environments. E.g. if you have two sites with different access to real-time data, you can create two "site" profiles which simply re-define the EUMETCast import. If this "site" profile is included in your profile parents, you can run the same configuration profile unmodified at both sites, since the parent "site" will be implicitely included and compensate for the differences between the two locations. This scheme also allows to move from development to operations without any configuration changes and without the need for re-testing. CineSat profiles are just definitions and do not restrict users. You can define a default profile to work with, but at any point you are free to switch to another profile. A note on optimization and safety: When starting real-time production with a specific profile, all settings from the configuration hierarchy will be compiled into a single local profile to speed up processing, and to avoid repeated access to essential configurations over the network.
	Conditional Configuration
	Top	There are frequent situations where a set of profiles only differs in the selection of which of the pre-configured imports, exports, or processing chains should be activated. Typical examples are primary/backup server pairs, or server test beds. Child profiles will perfectly handle such situations but CineSat also offers a convenient all-in one profile facility: You can define under which conditions CineSat should execute the registered imports, exports, chains, and cleanups. Any of these configuration items can be made dependant from the following set of conditions: TRUE / FALSE (always/never apply this config item) host / domain / IP address user name server role (a text string defined with APE start-up) existence or absence of files / directories exit code of a user program or script output string of a user program or script value of Unix environment or CineSat configuration variable All conditions support separate definition of APPLY and DENY criteria, negation, resolution of environment and configuration variables, and comparison of the condition against a list of patterns. E.g. if you want to run a specific export to your external customer only on computers named cinesat3, cinesat4, and for hosts in the 192.168.3.* IP address range, you will define the APPLY criterion "host=cinesat[34],192.168.3.*" Conditional configuration allows for building of compact all-in one server configurations. If you need finer differences between configurations than just switching on and off imports/exports/chains/cleanups, then you may apply child profiles. Any of your child profiles will support lowest-level change of every single configuration parameter.
	Server Role
	Top	A server role is a text string identifying the mode of operation for a configuration. It is provided with start-up of Automatic Product Extraction, and queried in conditional configurations. This is a safe and easy way for operators to change behaviour of the system in pre-defined manners - without editing any configurations. Typical use is to start a server configuration in PRIMARY, BACKUP, or TEST mode. If you e.g. used the following APPLY criterion "role=PRIMARY" for some data exports, they will only be executed if APE is started with role PRIMARY: ape start -r PRIMARY Although originally added as just a small feature, did the server role already turn out to be one of the most important and frequently used conditions.
	Enhanced Products
	Processing Chains for MPEF and OSISAF Data
	METOP Module
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