Author Topic: Introduction to Meteoplug (read 3rd)  (Read 13016 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline docbee

  • Moderator
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 853
    • smartbedded
Introduction to Meteoplug (read 3rd)
« on: August 05, 2013, 12:45:42 PM »
When you have worked through the introductions of Meteohub (http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=19755.0) and Meteobridge (http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=19756.0) you may ask yourself, what this Meteoplug-thing should provide which is not covered by Meteohub and Meteobridge.

Problem Statement: Meteobridge client does not store data and does not provide a graphing option. So when a user wants to have that he is stuck to the default graphing options Internet weather networks are providing.

Basic Concept: Meteoplug cloud service does focus on users, who are interested to have all their weather data stored in the cloud, where they can make use of professional grade graphing tools and thereby generate weather data charts which fit their personal taste and demand. Results are meant to be included into a users homepage by simply embedding Meteoplug graphing calls via iFrames. No regular upload of data/charts via FTP to a homepage is required.

Meteoplug graphing resides on a couple of different graphing packages, that have been licensed for SaaS use:
  • gnuplot (free): is fine for static graphs
  • amcharts (SaaS): is fine for interactive charts, where you can zoom into the time line (can render in javascript or )
  • fusion widgets (SaaS): is fine for composing individual dashboards (can render in javascript or flash)

Meteoplug wiki (http://www.meteoplug.com) does give examples in the "Gallery" how the charts look like and what kind of charts are supported. Each example in the gallery does come with the descriptive graphing code that does render these charts. Having these examples and a detailed functional description in the wiki should hopefully enable a wide range of users to adapt these examples to their specific demands. No doubt, it will need a bit of effort to get familiar with the descriptive language for graphing, when you don't stick to predefined examples. 

Meteoplug started as a service in 2010. At that time it resides on non-WLAN-enabled minimalistic client hardware (Bifferboard) and on Meteohubs, also feeding Meteoplug cloud for more powerfull graphing. Since development of Meteobridge it gets refocussed to be the cloud graphing engine that allows Meteobridge users to do individual graphing. Meteoplug cloud service runs on specialized HW colocated at a premium hoster in Germany. Its pure SSD-based Database currently holds 880GB of weather data of a couple of hundred registered users. Server status can be monitored here: http://wiki.meteoplug.com/Server_Status

Meteoplug cannot be a free service, as it produces cost in dimensions: hosting, HW and SaaS licensing. 12 months of usage do cost 29 Euro. Data can be exported any time, which is especially usefull, when a user decides not to continue with Meteoplug service and wants to hand-over all accumulated data to a new service.


I hope these three introductional posts do help to understand how the MeteoXY building blocks fit together in principle. For a comparision on feature level this link might also be helpfull: http://www.smartbedded.com/wiki/index.php/Comparison
founder of smartbedded.com - home of meteohub, meteoplug, meteobridge, meteostick