FEP - Format Use by an Archive - Experimental Space Physics Lab - IDFS

1. Archive Identification

Southwest Research Institute Experimental Space Physics Laboratory

2. Format (Format System) Identification

IDFS is the format of a majority of the data. There may be small amounts of unconverted telemetry files stored as well, but this data does not show up in the catalog.

3. Format Selection Rationale

It is required before data can be ingested because the archive is built around a set of software tools used to provide quick analysis abilities. There are two archive sites in Europe using the same software/format, so it is useful for data exchange with these archives as well.

4. Roles of Format

Role 3- The catalog/data display system is very useful for many kinds of analysis, which are overlayed on the storage/retrieval functions. The archive is intended to work in a distributed manner and the data analysis software will acquire data from any archive it knows by using the Internet. It is transparent to the user, except for the delay in copying data. This aspect relates to role number 4. Some work has been done to allow data to be exported in both ASCII flat files and CDFs.

Role 5- This was a very important consideration. The archived data does not have to be reprocessed be the level 0 to level X processing is done "on the fly" using metadata within the archive. The metadata can be modified to produce corrections without restoring the raw data.

5. Data Structures Supported

spectra, time series, images

6. Support

Southwest Research Institute supports the format, both through ongoing MO&DA funding from NASA and through other sources of funding.

7. Software

Southwest Data Display and Analysis System (SDDAS) is the primary mechanism of archive usage. This system is rather complex, but it provides many tools useful for examining the particles and fields environment at multiple points in space at a given time.

8. Desired Functions

The major inprovement envisioned involves the transistion of all metadata files to a PVL as opposed to a positional syntax.

9. Other Comments

Like many archives, we are moving towards a Web type interface and the provision of small applets to acquire and display data from the archive

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