Re: Paper on OpenDAP

Just some off-the-cuff responses.

The GODAE project is worth looking into here -- they have adopted 
OpenDAP and CF. I don't know how much activity the project has. There 
seems to be a difference between USGODAE and the vanilla flavour. At any 
rate, they don't seem to have published anything of significant for a 
couple of years, but the project is a really nice idea.

Here in the Bureau, we have a moderate degree of standardisaton on 
COARDS, but it's not an absolute rule.

The "easiest" way might be to support some particular convention in the 
output, with the server being able to convert to that from a number of 
different input conventions. For example, write code that will take 
either a COARDS or CF input file, and do the relevant modifications to 
the semantic-structure to present consistent output. That at least would 
greatly simplify the task of visualisation (for example). If coupled 
with a good generic data viewer (like IDV), then people would me even 
more inclined to adopt the standard.

Here at the Bureau the biggest obstacle is the lack of a BUFR 
interpreter for OpenDAP / thredds. This is a big deal for us, and we're 
going to have to go with a hybrid solution instead of using OpenDAP 
across the board. BUFR is an acronym for Binary Universal File 
Representation, and has been adopted by the World Met Organisation as a 
standard for obvervational data. It's a complete hassle to deal with, 
because the level of software support is low.

The other thing I thought would be cool (while we're throwing ideas 
around like popcorn) would be if Thredds was also a web service, with a 
WSDL and so forth.

> > Do any such conventions exist for OpenDAP?
>
>
> No. The idea is to let different disciplines impose whatever structure 
> they want on top of OPeNDAP. The more appropriate question would be 
> "Does the oceanographic (or the Earth Science) community have any such 
> convention?" Unfortunately, the answer is again no. That is my fault. 
> I should have recommended one a long time ago. I think that COARDS (or 
> CF) would be an excellent starting point and COARDS is becoming a de 
> facto standard in that many data providers use it. I was reluctant to 
> impose COARDS on the oceanographic use of the system since that would 
> mean the reordering of some archives which could be very costly. I 
> prefer a modified C
> COARDS, one that does not adhere to the semantic structure, but does 
> adhere to the rest of the standard.
>
> > Here at BOM we more or less have our conventions agreed on for my 
> > particular project, but if there were any recommended best practise 
> > it could be interesting.
>
>
> What do you think of adopting COARDS or CF? Would one or the other 
> address all of your data sets? If not, what is missing? If it could, 
> but your would rather not adopt it, it would really be useful to know 
> why and to know what you guys have adopted and why. I am hoping that 
> the Marine Metadata effort comes up with a recommendation for the 
> oceanographic community. I'm not sure what is being done for the 
> meteorological community, but it would be great if there was a similar 
> effort (to the Marine Metadata program) and if they came up with a 
> recommendation.
>
> Peter
>
> > Cheers,
> > -Tennessee
> --
>  Peter Cornillon
>    Graduate School of Oceanography     -  Telephone: (401) 874-6283
>       University of Rhode Island                 -               Fax: 
> (401) 874-6728
>         Narragansett, RI 02882                    -           E-mail: 
> address@hidden