Case Study: Deutscher Wetterdienst achieves 15x faster weather calculations and 1-second application response with NetApp All Flash FAS

DWD: Delivering Weather Information at the Speed of Nature

Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) is Germany’s national meteorological service responsible for forecasting and warning about weather hazards that affect aviation, emergency responders, and the public. Faced with ever‑growing satellite, radar, and station data fed into its NinJo visualization workstation and HPC models, DWD struggled with slow application response times—up to 15 seconds—which threatened timely delivery of life‑critical information.

DWD deployed NetApp All Flash FAS8060 arrays (plus NetApp E‑Series and FAS3000/6000 systems and SnapVault/OnCommand tools) across multiple sites to achieve sub‑millisecond per‑transfer latency. The upgrade cut NinJo response from 15 seconds to 1 second (≈15x faster), supported larger models within the three‑hour update window, enabled new interactive features for forecasters, and reduced operations to 2.5 FTEs managing 164 systems and over 8 PB of storage.

Deutscher Wetterdienst

Alexander Harth

Head of the User Support Division