WeatherBug

Leading Weather Data Provider Accelerates Development with Easy-to-Use Technology

WeatherBug is the world’s leading provider of live weather information, delivering neighborhood-level weather reports via the Internet, proprietary desktop applications, and mobile devices. Founded in 1992, the company has received industry acclaim for its innovation, while earning a following of more than 17 million monthly users. At the end of 2007, WeatherBug initiated development of a new application that enables people to track historical weather data using an interactive graph on its Web site. Using the Microsoft® Silverlight™ cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in; Windows® Presentation Foundation; and Microsoft Expression Blend™ design software, the WeatherBug team completed the new graphing application in three weeks. Now, traffic to the WeatherBug Web site has increased by more than 20 percent, and the company has improved its ability to quickly develop rich media solutions.

Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight provided us with the capabilities to display historical weather data in an interactive and visually compelling way. Tamir Melamed, Vice President for Technology, WeatherBug

Situation

Few forces rival weather for its tangible and immediate impact on daily life. Changing weather conditions and weather emergencies affect the planning decisions and priorities of individuals, schools, businesses, and government institutions each day, making access to accurate and timely weather information a prized commodity.

WeatherBug, a brand of AWS Convergence Technologies, has made it faster and easier for people to access precise, real-time local weather data. Through its powerful network of more than 8,000 weather stations, the company provides forecasts, severe weather alerts, and detailed weather reports that are updated every second. This information is available via its Web site, downloadable desktop tools, and mobile applications. In addition, the company enables developers to create their own customized weather data applications, using the WeatherBug application programming interface. 

In 2000, when the company launched its now famous WeatherBug desktop application, more than 1.5 million people downloaded it to their computers within the first eight months of its release. To date, more than 80 million people have downloaded the application, and WeatherBug data—both online and on-air—is seen in more than 70 million households each month.

To maintain its competitive edge, WeatherBug strives to deliver the most relevant and timely weather information in the most compelling way to its customers. Though the company has recently achieved breakthrough success with its mobile applications, one of its primary business goals is to drive more traffic to one of its most important strategic assets—the WeatherBug Web site.

In response to customer requests to include an historical weather feature on its Web site, WeatherBug IT leaders explored the option of using new interactive design and development technologies to create such an application. “We saw this application as a great opportunity to meet our customers’ needs while exploring new technologies,” says Tamir Melamed, Vice President for Technology for WeatherBug.

Solution

In the fall of 2007, the WeatherBug development team started gathering requirements for an online graphing tool that its customers could use to track weather changes over a specific date range. The goal for the new application was to display historical weather data in a visually compelling way without compromising the trademark reliability and performance of the WeatherBug Web site. To capitalize on the emerging demand for this information, the team needed to quickly develop and launch the application.

Fast Facts
Number of developers	1 designer, 2 developers
Time to complete	3 weeks
Designer and developer tools	Microsoft Expression Blend Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition
Programming languages	Microsoft ASP.NET
Programming model	Windows Presentation Foundation JavaScript XAML

The company chose to take advantage of its experience working with Microsoft® software and technologies to develop the new graphing application. The WeatherBug team had previously used the Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 development system and the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 managed programming model to develop interactive Web pages and desktop applications. The team particularly appreciated the ease of use of Windows® Presentation Foundation, an addition to the .NET Framework 3.0 that enables designers and developers to collaborate to build rich graphical interfaces.

The WeatherBug team was also eager to capitalize on the advent of Microsoft Silverlight™, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in that lets developers quickly create rich, interactive applications for the Web. In addition, the team sought to explore the new features and JavaScript debugging capabilities of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition and the creative possibilities of Microsoft Expression Blend™, a professional design tool for creating engaging, Web-connected applications. Further, as part of its ongoing commitment to improving the performance of its Web site, the company plans to continue migrating its server infrastructure to Windows Server® 2008 with Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0.

From a developer’s perspective, Silverlight is much easier to use than Flash because the technology is familiar. Justin Dearing, Director of Software Engineering, WeatherBug

Fast Response to Market Demand
While many Web-based service providers faltered during the late 1990s, WeatherBug continued to build its customer base and draw millions of people to its Web site every day. In response to customer demand for a way to track historical weather data, the company’s development team immediately began framing a solution. To evaluate its technology options for developing the new graphing tool, the team compared Silverlight to Adobe Flash technology. “We considered using Flash, but it had too steep of a learning curve,” says Justin Dearing, Director of Software Engineering for WeatherBug. “The functionality is similar, but programming in Silverlight is much easier, which gave us a definite edge in terms of agility and productivity. The team also capitalized on the cross-browser, cross-platform flexibility of Silverlight to reduce the amount of time from development to launch. “We were able to go live with the application much faster because of all of the testing time we saved using Silverlight,” says Melamed. This ease of use and flexibility enabled WeatherBug to deploy the application in just three weeks, which meant the company could meet its customer needs in a highly responsive way.   

Creating a Compelling User Interface
In conceptualizing the new application, the WeatherBug team focused on two main objectives: maximizing the visual appeal and ease of use of the design and building as much interactivity into the application as possible. Using Expression Blend, the team’s designer incorporated interactive elements into the solution design early in the development life cycle. This saved time and enabled the designer to focus on optimizing the layout to ensure an enjoyable user experience. “Microsoft Blend helped us quickly visualize the application and design it around all the great animation and interactivity offered by Windows Presentation Foundation,” says Melamed.

The WeatherBug team used Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers and the .NET Framework 3.0 to develop its historical weather data application, relying heavily on the visual capabilities Windows Presentation Foundation provides to create a compelling user interface. “We faced the challenge of making this information exciting to users.” Melamed says. “Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight provided us with the capabilities to display historical weather data in an interactive and visually compelling way.”

Using Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight, the team created a dynamic application that lets users choose from a range of weather data types—including temperature, humidity, and wind speed—and select a specific date range in which to view the changes in each metric over time, as illustrated in Figure 1. By adjusting the date indicator located below the graph, users can easily narrow or expand the scope of their search. “Windows Presentation Foundation gave us advanced graphing capabilities we didn’t have before,” says Melamed.  

Figure 1. WeatherBug historical weather data graphing application.

Evaluating Gains from Server Upgrade
The performance of the company’s systems, including the WeatherBug Web site, is essential to its success. Each day, WeatherBug delivers live weather data to millions of people who rely on the immediate availability of this information to plan with confidence. For years, the WeatherBug system architecture has been based on Windows Server 2003 with IIS 6.0. As the company looks to host more dynamic content on its Web site, it is evaluating the potential for substantial performance gains by upgrading to Windows Server 2008 with IIS 7.0. Windows Server 2008 provides a stable, secure, and highly extensible platform to support mission critical systems and applications. “We’ve already started migrating some of our servers to Windows Server 2008,” says Melamed. “We’re particularly interested in the new server management features and performance enhancements of IIS 7.0. In the testing we’ve done on our Web site, we’ve already seen huge performance advantages from the ability in IIS 7.0 to select the modules you want to run.”

Benefits

Since launching the weather data application, WeatherBug has experienced a substantial increase in traffic to its Web site and has received a flood of positive feedback from its customers. Using several integrated development technologies from Microsoft, including Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight, and Expression Blend, the WeatherBug development team gained from a streamlined development process informed by high levels of quality at every stage.

Rapid Time to Market
One of the first decisions the WeatherBug team made in developing this new application was to use Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight rather than Adobe Flash technology. The rich functionality and ease of use of Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight helped the team quickly gain proficiency, reducing development time by approximately 20 percent. “From a developer’s perspective, Silverlight is much easier to use than Flash because the technology is familiar,” explains Dearing. Using this technology, one designer and two developers planned, designed, developed, and launched an interactive graphing application in just three weeks.

Microsoft Expression Blend helped us quickly visualize the application and design it around all the great animation and interactivity offered by Windows Presentation Foundation. Tamir Melamed, Vice President for Technology, WeatherBug

Using the Expression Blend design tool together with Visual Studio 2005, the WeatherBug team easily shared designs, code, and other solution artifacts throughout the development process. Increased collaboration early in the development life cycle led to fewer production delays and errors. In addition, the team took advantage of the JavaScript debugging capabilities of Visual Studio 2008 to drive improved quality control throughout every phase of development. 

Cost-Effective Development
One of the team’s major goals in developing the historical weather data tool was to create and launch a high-quality, rich media application while keeping development costs contained. “We saw this as an opportunity to use cutting-edge technology to reduce development time and lower costs without losing quality,” Melamed says.

To ensure consistently reliable code throughout the development life cycle, the team took advantage of the JavaScript debugging feature of Visual Studio Team System 2008. “The availability of JavaScript debugging in Visual Studio 2008 is a huge benefit that saved us time and made developing this application much easier,” remarks Dearing. WeatherBug also saved time and improved quality early in the development process by using Expression Blend to collaborate on the application design. With clear visibility into the design process, the team’s developers were able to start formulating code and anticipating challenges sooner, avoiding costly delays during subsequent development phases. And because Expression Blend works seamlessly with Visual Studio, the team’s designer could quickly make design changes to the application throughout the development process, rather than waiting for the developers to complete their work.
    
Increased Web Site Traffic
Since launching its new historical weather data graphing application, WeatherBug has experienced monthly increases in the traffic to its Web site of more than 20 percent. “People are definitely visiting our site just to use the new graphing feature, and the feedback from customers has been very positive,” remarks Melamed. After successfully launching its first application using Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight, the company plans to increase its use of this technology to meet the growing demand for rich media content on the Web.

Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, Visual Basic®, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight also supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on Mac OS or Windows.

For more information about Silverlight, please go to:
www.microsoft.com/silverlight

 

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For more information about WeatherBug products and services, visit the Web site at:
weatherbug.com

 

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