Dapper converts in-situ and gridded data formats into the OPeNDAP protocol and streams the data to an OPeNDAP client. This conversion is accomplished through a set of configurable services implemented in a Java servlet.

The Climate Data Portal (CDP) service aggregates a group of netCDF profiles or time series into a single dataset by reading data from the Climate Data Portal server. Metadata from the netCDF files is stored in a relational database (MySQL), while the profile measurements remain in in the individual netCDF profile files. Data from the CDP are returned to clients using the OPeNDAP Sequence datatype.

Data from netCDF files can also be returned as OPeNDAP Grids or Arrays by the netCDF service, which allows a data provider to read and aggregate netCDF data that is available locally as a file or remotely through OPeNDAP or HTTP.