[Support #IWD-645510]: Unidata participation

Hello Lewis, 

> Hello there,
> It seems like my email request below has now been logged into your support
> system.

Yes, we have it :)

> Could you advise whom I should make contact with to address my query
> directly?

You have found the place :)

> 
> Kind regards,
> Lewis Walker.
> 
> 
> > Dear Sir / Madam,
> >
> > I wonder if you can help me.
> > I'm based in New Zealand and I'm developing a browser-based application
> > that provides advanced, real-time visualisation of weather data. The
> > application will be backed by cloud-based datasets, both on-line and
> > archived.

Sounds fun and exciting.

> > I intend to offer access to this data and application to educational
> > institutions on a not-for-profit basis. Clearly there will be minimal
> > charges in order to cover cloud computing costs, but I intend to provide
> > open access to my accounts to show how any positive balance is reinvested
> > or offered as future discount in order to comply with not-for-profit
> > principles. I would really appreciate guidance on how to comply for and
> > gain access to data from the Unidata community on a free basis.
> >
> > Can you please advise?

We, Unidata, do not and can not feed commercial groups. We are chartered by the 
US National Science Foundation to support US universities and research 
institutions. We are also not "operational", meaning
we can not guarantee that our systems will stay up, we give best effort (often 
we are up  more than "operational" sites), but we surely cannot guarantee any 
level of service.

As you may or may not know, we offer both push and pull access paradigms for 
the data that we provide and support multiple visualization clients (IDV, 
GEMPAK, and McIDAS). This is all available for free, and given the current 
tight financial picture many sites may not be willing to play on a cost share 
basis. Nonetheless, it sure would be interesting to hear more about what you 
are planning on doing, if we have a bit more info from you we may have some 
creative ways to get you data. :)

i.e. what data sets are you interested in?

Cheers, 

Jeff
Jeff Weber
Unidata User Support
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: IWD-645510
Department: Support IDD
Priority: Low
Status: Open