Optus is an Australian leader in integrated communications and holds 35 percent of the domestic mobile phone market. By joining forces with Optus, Weathernews is launching weather information services on mobile phones. The company is one of the largest privately-owned meteorological services in the world, employing more than 600 people and 350 meteorologists. In addition to their online service, Optus is offering their own weather apps. The new services will help both companies reach new customers and increase profits.
To meet the needs of this news service, Weathernews had two different systems. The first system was built in Northern Virginia, and the second is in the Tokyo region. In case of a failure, the main system will fall back to the Tokyo Region. The main system is built on Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, which are discounted servers. The team worked with AWS Solution Architects to configure the system to meet the demands of its global user base.
Besides providing detailed weather forecasts, this service also offers several additional channels, such as radar imagery, cloud imagery, and 5-minute weather forecasts. The 7-day forecast includes weather forecasts for 11 major cities as well as high and low temperatures, as well as comments from a meteorologist. The 5-minute weather forecast is a video program that explains current trends and a national outlook. Although the company is privately owned, it is still a leading provider of weather information and news.