The OPeNDAP data server is simply made up of a regular httpd server
equipped with CGI programs (or filters) that will respond to requests
for dataset structure, data attributes, and data itself. (See
Section 6.2 for a description of the data returned by these
requests and see Section 2.1 for a description of the
OPeNDAP URL syntax used to send these requests.) Most of the task of a
data provider consists of configuring this server. While perhaps not
a trivial task, it potentially represents far less effort than
packaging a dataset for submission to some central data archive.
Furthermore, modifying a server's configuration to accommodate new
data will be an almost trivial task, involving the simple editing of a
configuration file.