Case Study: Northrop Grumman achieves 6x faster simulations and 4x higher resolution with Actian's Versant Object Database

Northrop Grumman - Customer Case Study 

Northrop Grumman built the Cloud Depiction and Forecast System II (CDFS II) for the Air Force Weather Agency to deliver near–real-time global cloud analysis and forecasting. Developers faced the challenge of processing feeds from nine satellites and other weather sources to produce hourly 12‑hour forecasts and a 60‑hour forecast every six hours while running roughly six times faster and at four times the resolution of the previous system.

To meet that challenge they used object‑oriented C++ with the Versant Object Database, eliminating object‑to‑relational mapping and excess indexes. That one‑to‑one in‑memory model boosted ingestion and analysis rates by about an order of magnitude, halved grid resolution (from 29 to 14.5 miles), expanded throughput to manage four times the data, and enabled the new forecasting cadence now used operationally by the Air Force and other agencies.

Northrop Grumman