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20000831: AMRC, and its data available via ADDE...



>From: Matthew Lazzara <address@hidden>
>Organization: SSEC/AMRC
>Keywords: 200008311506.e7VF6UN01692 McIDAS AMRC ADDE subserver

Matt,

Sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to you on this, but
things have been very hectic around here, especially since I have been
changing the image compression used in the Unidata-Wisconsin.

>Last year, at the MUG meeting, we discussed the possibilities of having
>the AMRC announce to the Unidata community the availability of its data
>via ADDE.  I have not pursued this yet due to AMRC's uncertain funding and
>future.  I am now happy to report that NSF has verbally informed us that
>AMRC will be funded to some extent for the next two years.

I am glad to hear that funding prospects are looking a little better.

>Thus, I am contacting you to start the process to announce AMRC's datasets
>are available via ADDE.  Specifically:
>
>1. I'd like to work with you on the announcement/distribution.

I would enjoy this.

>2. I'd like to discuss with you one concern I have with regards to accounting.
>   Currently, the AMRC runs a version of SSEC's accounting software that is
>   in McIDAS to track who is accessing AMRC's database, and how much. It is
>   important to note the AMRC does not charge at all for data, but instead
>   uses this information in our project reports to the National Science
>   Foundataion, who funds the AMRC.  I suspect that "LOGON" command in
>   McIDAS is hardly used in the Unidata community,

You are correct.  LOGON is virtually never used by Unidata McIDAS-X users.

>   and thus, I will have a
>   more challenging try tracking users (there is a way to check through the
>   IP/domain names that connect, but the search abilities in the SSEC accounti 
> ng
>   software to extract usage based on IP/domain name are not developed I
>   suspect.  This is a minor point, but I wanted to let you know about this,
>   and talk with you on this minor point.  Prof. Stearns (AMRC's PI) and I
>   have talked about no longer tracking ADDE usage, but perhaps this isn't
>   wise, especially with regards to monitoring abuse of the server or  
>   other security issues.  In any case, perhaps this is a moot issue.

OK.  There are perhaps other ways of tracking access to the machine
by user hostname.  Use of Tcp wrappers comes to mind.  Scripts that
extract a user's machine hostname would have to be developed.  This,
however, would not tell you how much data was transferred, but it could
be a coarse measurement of how often the ADDE server was contacted.

>3.  As the AMRC fund arrive, and work on the AMRC begins, I will be making
>    changes, etc.  I will need to notify possible users and look forward to
>    working with you to make sure that the Unidata community is informed.

Thanks for thinking of us.  I think that the polar data would be a valuable
asset to the Unidata community.  We know that there are a number of users
interested in polar orbiting satellite data from the responses to the
UCAR community wide survey that was completed not too long ago.  Providing
a way of accessing this kind of data has, therefore, started to percolate
up on my oh too long list of things to do.

>I look forward to hearing back from you on this.

I welcome the interaction and hope that I will have enough time to devote
to this in the coming weeks/months.

>Best Regards,

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Matthew Lazzara - Meteorologist - Antarctic Meteorological Research Center
Space Science and Engineering Center        E-mail: address@hidden
University of Wisconsin-Madison             Phone: (608) 262-0436
1225 West Dayton Street, Madison, WI 53706  Fax: (608) 263-6738
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Talk to you later...

Tom