NOAA Observing System Architecture

The NOAA Observing System Architecture (NOSA) is a collection of over 100 of the environmental datasets of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It was established to develop an observational architecture that helps NOAA to design observing systems that support NOAA's mission, avoid duplication of existing systems and operate efficiently in a cost-effective manner.

NOSA includes:
 * NOAA's observing systems (and others) required to support NOAA's mission,
 * The relationship among observing systems; including how they contribute to support NOAA's mission and associated observing requirements, and
 * The guidelines governing the design of a target architecture and the evolution toward this target architecture