Data Services

NODC has implemented numerous interoperable data technologies to enhance the discovery, understanding, and use of the vast quantities of oceanographic data in the NODC archives. Combined, these technologies enable NODC to provide access to its data holdings and products through some of the commonly-used standardized Web services.

Below is a short description of the data services implemented at NODC. Not all web services contain all NODC data sets.

OPeNDAP Hyrax Server

• http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/opendap/

OPeNDAP is a framework that simplifies all aspects of scientific data networking. It provides software which makes local data accessible to remote locations regardless of format. OPeNDAP, Inc. maintains the internationally recognized standard known as the Data Access Protocol (DAP), which we support through the Hyrax server. Users of the DAP standard can subset datasets, transform data into ASCII, and access the metadata embedded in a file in several ways. It is freely available at http://www.opendap.org/.

THREDDS Data Server (TDS)

• http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/thredds/

Thematic Realtime Environmental Distributed Data Services (THREDDS) Data Server (TDS) is a web server that provides metadata and data access for scientific datasets, using OPeNDAP, OGC WMS and WCS, HTTP, and other remote data access protocols. The TDS is developed and supported by Unidata, a division of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), and is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/tds/

Live Access Server (LAS)

• http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/las/

The Live Access Server (LAS) is a highly configurable web server designed to provide flexible access to geo-referenced scientific data. It can present distributed data sets as a unified virtual database, allow one to visualize data with on-the-fly graphics, and request custom subsets of variables in a choice of file formats. http://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/LAS

HTTP

A browsable representation of our oceanographic data files listed in an HTML directory format.

OAI-PMH

The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) is a low-barrier mechanism for repository interoperability. We expose structured metadata via OAI-PMH. Service Providers then make OAI-PMH service requests to harvest that metadata. OAI-PMH is a set of six verbs or services that are invoked within HTTP. http://www.openarchives.org/pmh/

FTP Servers

File Transfer Protocol server (FTP) can be viewed using a browser by clicking the links to right, or by logging in using an FTP client. Use anonymous as your name and your email address as your password if you use the login method. When logged on, use normal FTP commands like "cd pub/incoming" or "mget".

Geoportal Server

• http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/geoportal/

Since not all services can be applied to all of the tens of thousands of collections in the archive, confusion can arise for the users trying to figure out the available services for different collections. The Geoportal Server addresses this concern and is used as an integrating technology, bringing together various data access, visualization, discovery services, and metadata into a user-focused framework.