Unidata Support by Package -- Russ Rew

Above is a histogram for the number of Unidata email support responses for the top Unidata packages over the last year and for the last 4 months. The measure of support has been normalized to "email responses per week" so that the support load over the two time periods can be compared. Total support averaged 76.5 responses/week over the last year, and 85.9 responses per week over the last four months, so that is also increasing. Total support includes not only the packages in the histogram above, but also "miscellaneous" for uncategorized support responses, announcements pertaining to various packages posted to the "announce" mailing list, answers to questions about licensing, networking, platforms, systems administration, and our training workshops.

Some tentative conclusions:

• Support required for LDM, IDD, DODS, IDV, and total support continue to grow.
• Support required for the IDV is now comparable to support for GEMPAK and McIDAS.

These numbers and conclusions should not be taken too seriously, for several reasons:

• For some packages, multiple responses in the same thread may be bundled into a single archived email. Other packages have each response in a thread counted separately.
• After a new release of software, there may be a flurry of the same question, which can be answered in separate emails or in a single mailing list posting.
• Some users prefer phone consultation to email, so their support load does not get counted above.
• This counts primarily support of end users and site administrators, not developers. Support for other developers in projects such as OPeNDAP/DODS, THREDDS, McIDAS, and GEMPAK requires significant resources, but is difficult to assess.