Helyx SIS Ltd (specialists in Information management and Exploitation) together with Snowflake Software (specialists in data exchange solutions via Open Standards)  have successfully won a programme of work to provide specialist Aeronautical Open Standards consultancy to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).

The scope of the project is to undertake a study to inform the UK MoD and stakeholders of the implications associated with the MoD’s potential further adoption/restricted adoption of established, maturing and emerging aeronautical standards to exchange aeronautical, weather and flight information.

The partnership draws on a portfolio of previously awarded projects within the last 3 years that are involved in the assessment and development of the more technical aspects of information exchange between aeronautical data providers and central bodies.

The work builds upon Helyx’s experience and expertise in analysis of policy and capabilities and an understanding the UK MoD Aeronautical domain. Drawing on a system engineering background, Helyx have been involved in the development and implementation of standards as part of the System of Systems Approach promoted by DE&S supporting Team ENSURE. Helyx have previously supported AIDU in the analysis and definition of future Aeronautical Information requirements. Helyx have also worked in the NATO geospatial standards working group and were involved in the definition of requirements for air information standards which provides a wider context for the task.

The work into Aeronautical Standards Research builds on Snowflake’s award winning and leading role implementing the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Model Driven Approach to managed Geography Markup Language (GML) application schema design and optimisation for use in practical applications and web services. Snowflake will provide AIXM, WXXM and FIXM, Aeronautical Data Quality (ADQ) and System Wide Information Management (SWIM) web service expertise. This project sits alongside recent Snowflake contract awards from the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) for an S-100 GML profile and route exchange schemas and FAA and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) projects for the Aviation (AIXM) GML profile and Weather (WXXM) GML application schemas.

Dr Karl West, Head of Business Development for Helyx said, “We have been looking for an excuse to work with Snowflake for some time and this exciting opportunity marks the first formal collaboration between two successful UK SME’s, joining forces to bring expertise and experience to bear to really add value. We are delighted to have teamed with Snowflake and thrilled to have won the competition for this work and look forward to a continued close working relationship in the future”.

Alexis Brooker, Principal Consultant here at Snowflake commented, “We are delighted to be working with Helyx on this exciting project. This is a great opportunity to bring major advances, achieved in the civilian Aviation domain, into UK Defence Aeronautical Information Management and wider Exploitation understanding and capability.  Not only that, but key aspects developed through OGC Interoperability trials such as event based notifications and data validation in context ‘as a service’ can be drawn across to the maritime, land and anywhere open standards based GML is used for data exchange”.

DSTL Geospatial Standards Lead Paul Lacey, Senior Geospatial Intelligence Specialist for Dstl commented, “The use of open standards are a key enabler for MoD’s collaboration with its key partners. The work undertaken by Helyx and Snowflake will help inform future decisions by MoD so that it can continue to operate effectively in the Aeronautical domain”.

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We are really pleased to announce our  recent technology partnership with Keysoft Solutions, specialists in highway design, maintenance and engineering solutions. The new technology partnership not only compliments both companies’ strengths in data and information management but also enables future opportunities for collaboration and innovation.

KeyOSC (Ordnance Survey Companion) Mapper from Keysoft Solutions utilises our Snowflake GO Loader data loading software, enabling organisations to work with Ordnance Survey Background Maps inside of AutoCAD.

KeyOSC Mapper

KeyOSC Mapper enables organisations to share their OS MasterMap data held in a central database (Oracle or SQL) with AutoCAD users without the need for the duplication of data. It extends the functionality of AutoCAD allowing users to access seamless background maps, locate their site using a range of tools and load the view into their drawing as CAD entities.

GO Loader
Our off-the-shelf GO Loader software is the complete, easy-to-use solution for converting and loading OS MasterMap files into an Oracle (Spatial and Locator) or SQL Server 2008 database. With pre-defined project templates for OS MasterMap layers users are able to get started quickly and easily. Designed and built by the original technical architects of OS MasterMap, GO Loader is used by Local Authorities to the UK’s leading companies to load hundreds of millions of OS MasterMap features on a daily basis.

“It is a pleasure to partner with industry experts Keysoft Solutions and to together provide a complete data management solution which enables the integration of CAD and GIS systems. Our technology partnerships reinforce our continued commitment at Snowflake to support System Integrators who want to build innovative products and services with our technology. We look forward to working with the team at Keysoft Solutions and to forging a strong relationship.” comments Ian Painter, Managing Director here at Snowflake.

Jeremy Ellis, Managing Director of Keysoft Solutions, said: “KeyOSC Mapper provides the missing link for AutoCAD users wishing to access seamless mapping data already held within their corporate database. Snowflake’s GO Loader completes the solution we can offer as it converts OS MasterMap data into either an Oracle or SQL database that can be shared by AutoCAD and GIS users alike. With the need to offer solutions that deliver real benefits to our customers our partnership with Snowflake is not only timely but provides an opportunity to develop stronger links between CAD and GIS in the future.”

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Bring anything geeky, techy or generally super cool into our office and you’re going to have a captive audience as the team from Robogals Southampton discovered when they came to visit us with their Lego NXT.

All credit to these geek girls from Southampton University Electronics and Computer Science department who are championing a great cause, promoting STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) and encouraging girls aged 10-16 to get into electronic engineering and programming.

Robogals International was first started in Australia and now has chapters in the UK, USA and Japan. Robogals’ core activity involves university student volunteers visiting schools to introduce girls to engineering through robotics workshops and presentations about what engineers do and the difference they make in society.

We were really impressed with the energy and enthusiasm Bryony, Yusra, Doga and Michael (token Robo-Man!) had for reducing the imbalance between men and women in engineering and technology. Supporting women in technology is something we’re really passionate about at Snowflake – we’re nearly a 50/50 split here which is quite rare for a software company!

The Robogals team will be looking to head into primary and secondary schools in the local Southampton area, as well as youth groups, to run robotics workshops and short lessons. We’re looking forward to supporting their activities, as well as having a go with a few of the robots ourselves. Look out for future posts on our activities with Robogals.

Find out more about Robogals Southampton by heading to their website, Facebook, or Twitter feed.

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Our approach to enterprise software is to build trust with our customers, stakeholders and partners – by working with them and by reaching out to the market.  By providing insight on our experience with Aeronautical Information, OpenStreetMap, Weather information and award winning test beds we help share the common issues and start the discussion – helping move things forward.  We are the enemy of closed infocratic consultants, we do more than simply stay one page ahead in the manual.

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We are very excited and pleased to announce the opening of our first US office and the launch of Snowflake Software Inc.

Snowflake Software is expanding into North America as a direct result of positive business growth within the Air Traffic Management (ATM) sector. “Opening our first US office is a strategic move to develop both our ATM business and our partner base in North America. It’s also about being closer and more accessible to our current US customers”, explains Ian Painter, CEO at Snowflake.

The new office will be in the Capital Gallery Building in Washington, D.C., close to Independence Avenue, where the Federal Aviation Administration is based. A local team is being recruited who will be supported on a regular basis by senior management from the UK.

Based on open standards, our unique GO Loader and GO Publisher software products enable organisations to build NextGen infrastructure on top of existing systems.  Importantly we take a ‘configuration only’ approach where our products act as an open standards ‘wrapper’ enabling organisations to exchange Aeronautical (AIXM), Weather (WXXM) and Flight (FIXM) information in accordance to the net-centric goals of System Wide Information Management (SWIM).  Through adopting such an approach, organisations de-risk their move towards NextGen whilst at the same time increasing the interoperability of their existing technology investment. We recently received the SESAR SWIM MasterClass Best in Class Award and the ATC Global Excellence Award for our work in building SWIM B2B Web Services using open standards.

The newly incorporated Snowflake Software Inc. will operate as the North American subsidiary of parent company Snowflake Software Ltd.

Ian Painter will be out in the US for the ATCA Technical Symposium on 21-23rd May in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This is a great opportunity for us to meet with US organisations specifically involved in the ATM domain. To arrange a meeting with Ian at the Technical Symposium please get in touch or look out for the Snowflake stand during the event.

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When you start a company one of the first things you need to do is pick a company name and develop some sort of logo and branding. It’s a pretty important decision that can make or break your business and needs to be something you can feel passionate about and live with on a daily basis. Many people when we meet them for the first time ask us why ‘Snowflake’? – after which ensues a quirky retelling of how our founders Ian and Eddie are both software engineers by trade and whilst Ian’s first software program printed Hello World on screen, Eddie’s first software program was a snowflake crystal emulator….. Looking back, now 11 years ago, we certainly named the company correctly – ‘Snowflake Software’ draws plenty of positive attention and is remembered for being different, an attribute we encourage within Snowflake.

But after 11 years the company has, as expected, grown and evolved. We’re no longer 3 geeks burning the midnight oil and working out of a back office but a team of talented developers and technical consultants, backed up by a dedicated customer support team and office administrators. Three has grown into a diverse and talented team (and soon to be even more as we continue to grow!), with customers in Europe, Asia, Oceania, North and South America. After 11 years we felt it was time to ‘refresh’ the look of Snowflake to reflect the company we are today.

Refresh – 2001 to 2013

You can see how the logo has evolved over the past 11 years to the new look today:

2001

Snowflake around 2001

Snowflake in 2007

Snowflake in 2013

But that’s not all…

If you thought this was a big announcement for Snowflake then just wait for tomorrow. We have an even bigger and exciting announcement to shout about so make sure you keep an eye on our website, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Tweet us your guesses of just what we might be announcing with the tag #sflakesoftware – first correct guess via Twitter will win some new Snowflake branded swag.

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London recently played host to the second date on the Amazon Web Services Summit world tour. These free events have been designed to provide introductions and best practice tips to all levels of AWS user experience. Here at Snowflake we have been tinkering with AWS in order to deploy WFS applications and have found it a slick and user friendly service, however with so many tools and configurable elements available, attending the summit was an ideal opportunity to learn more.

Having queued around the block to get into the Business Design Centre in Islington, it’s clear that Amazon don’t do things by halves. The Royal Agricultural Hall is an impressive building with an abundance of space for the event sponsors and Amazon themselves who had ‘hands-on labs’ allowing you to hook-up your laptop and get some practical advice on the go.

The monster queue

The key notes on the main stage were covered by CTO Dr. Werner Vogels and chief information security officer, Stephen Schmidt. Amongst a variety of case studies on show, themes covered included Amazon’s impressive record on price drops and how their vision is to see the cost of cloud computing become negligible to drive innovation. An exciting prospect if it can be achieved in these belt-tightening times. On the security side of things it was emphasised it should be treated exactly the same as any office based IT would be even though the environment feels very different.

After lunch there were three separate breakout tracks for delegates to tailor their programme. First up on the bootstrapping track was your first week with Amazon EC2. This session gave an overview on setting up your EC2 account properly and gave some good tips on automating elements of setup, and also simplifying billing to help keep track of different sever instances. This is something we will definitely revisit here to ensure we are getting value for money.

Second on the list for the advanced topics track was an introduction to OpsWorks. This is a new service that allows you to comprehensively configure application resource sets and manage them together. We have been using Elastic Beanstalk for quick and easy application deployment but the extra configurability of OpsWorks looks like it could be of benefit to support our web apps.

Following on from OpsWorks was a session on optimising apps and usage to help reduce costs. With so many easy to setup tools available, the potential for costs to run away unnecessarily is quite high. Fortunately there are lots of tricks you can employ such as billing alerts and idle resource detection to help keep a handle on your cloud kingdom.

The summit was extremely well attended and the packed and varied schedule meant there was little down time. The topics covered were at a high level which made some of the more technical content easier to digest and all-in-all it was a useful event to attend. One thing is for sure, the cloud is going to be a an essential environment for our work in the future.

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“states in a position to do so … may exchange METAR, SPECI, TAF and SIGMET in XML.”

Amendment 76 of ICAO Annex 3

ICAO Annex 3

To actually enable states to publish Air Navigation Meteorological Service data in XML, the WMO and ICAO are developing an Aviation Meteorological Exchange Model (AvXML – current working title).  In February 2013, release candidate 1.0 of AvXML was released for initial review by both the Meteorological and software vendor community.

As a keen advocate of XML, GML and open exchange models, Snowflake was invited to review and test AvXML release candidate 1.0; we presented and demonstrated our ability to load and publish METARs and TAFs using the GO Loader and GO Publisher COTS products at the ‘4^th Workshop on the use of GIS in meteorology’ hosted at ECMWF, Reading. UK.  Current customers should note that if they have a valid maintenance contract they will inherit the ability to load and publish all these new XML/GML exchange models – and even those without maintenance have a strong chance that support is already present.

During our testing of AvXML release candidate 1.0 we fired back some issues which have been taken into consideration and shall be addressed in AvXML release candidate 2.0, to be released on 26th April 2013. We are looking forward to undertaking further testing of release candidate 2.0 and plan to set up some freely accessible demonstration services to assist the meteorological community review the specification and test the next generation of web services that can be used to improve access and use of Aviation meteorological data.

Timelines for AvXML 1.0 and WXXM 2.0

If you are interested in understanding more about AvXML 1.0 and how it relates to WXXM 2.0 in development by FAA/Eurocontrol, would like to run an integration trial/experiment  or would like further information about meteorological data exchange web services please feel free to contact the consulting team here at Snowflake.

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Last Monday (8th April) was a momentous one for me. Not only was it my birthday, but I also celebrated the months of hard work that myself and other experts across Europe put into the development of the INSPIRE Annex II and III Data Specifications.

The INSPIRE Annex II and III Data Specifications were unanimously agreed by the Member States, with only a couple of minor amendments being required for a few code lists. The translation of the Implementing Rule for Interoperability of spatial data sets and services can now be finalised and the Regulation will enter into force in the forthcoming months.

Now that we have successfully developed the first set of harmonised data specifications for the 34 INSPIRE Annex themes the responsibility for the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive now transitions from the Commission Bodies to the Public Authorities in Member States. I for one am looking forward to seeing data providers start to transform and publish their data in accordance to these data specifications.

The acceptance of the INSPIRE Data Specifications shall also see the development of extension schemas which build upon these base specifications to expand them to allow them to be better used for specific applications. One such example is the draft Air Quality Directive (AQD) e-Reporting Data specification.

Implementation of INSPIRE is beginning to pick up pace here in the UK. The Defra INSPIRE Coordination Unit has been actively engaging with Public Authorities over the last few months to identify the high priority datasets that fall within Annex II and III and the Local Government Association (LGA) is continuing to engage with Local Authorities to identify how to most effectively implement INSPIRE alongside the Open Data requirements for opening access to Public Sector data.

So the next 12 months is going to be an interesting time, as the Download Services for the INSPIRE Annex I datasets become available and the high-priority Annex II and III datasets are identified and published into the INSPIRE Network via the Discovery and View Services at the end of the year.

To help Public Authorities get started with implementing INSPIRE, we at Snowflake have a range of solutions from training and consultancy to software with pre-defined schema transformations to publish and consume INSPIRE Datasets. Join our next INSPIRE Course – Monday 3oth April.

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In the 6 months since it launched, we’ve been steadily pushing out regular monthly updates of our free ATM Viewer for AIXM. From adding a super cool airspace slider to providing a dedicated Wiki guide to help users get started we’re passionate about making our ATM Viewer the best viewer available for AIXM. We’ve done our best to keep up with all the feature requests from users and really appreciate all the encouragement we’ve had from the industry.  So to celebrate the ATM Viewer’s 6 month birthday we’re shipping our biggest release yet, version 1.1, which is so stuffed with new features it’s fit to burst.

 Check out all the new features:

We’ve also added improvements to:

• Wiki documentation and  Help button improvements for Mac users
• Document the Context window on the Selection Item screen
• Drag and drop loading of files with .aixm and .aixm51 extension
• Support for all links between the AIXM elements
• Airspace limit tags containing no value
• Linux support

Really easy install

No need to re-register for a new version! Just fire up the ATM Viewer and click on the ‘Download Update’ link in the top message bar. It really is that easy! Wait for the new version to download and then run the installer. Start the new version of the Viewer and you should see that the splash screen states 1.1. But if you do have any problems please contact us.

Not got the ATM Viewer for AIXM at all? Read all about it and download absolutely free.

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