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Why OPeNDAP?
Over the past 30 years, our partnerships with NASA and NOAA has enabled OPeNDAP to pioneer innovative methods for delivering high-performance access to NetCDF and HDF data files through our Hyrax Data Server—whether hosted on the cloud or traditional spinning disks. As scientific data repositories grow, the demand for interoperable access is more critical than ever to foster innovation and discovery. Importantly, the responsibility of reformatting data to suit new infrastructure should not fall on users or data producers. At OPeNDAP, we are dedicated to realizing a vision of seamless, interoperable, and universal access to scientific data, free from the burden of reformatting.
Photo by NASA
Benefits for Those Accessing & Manipulating Data
Widely Adopted
The OPeNDAP protocol has been implemented by hundreds of data providers and is a NASA community standard.
Domain Neutral
OPeNDAP is deliberately domain neutral, making it easier to collaborate across scientific, research, and other disciplines.
Multiple Data Types
OPeNDAP allows access and manipulation of structured data, gridded data, multidimensional arrays, time series data, remote sensing data, and more.
Remote Inspection & Subsetting
OPeNDAP allows you to request and retrieve only the subset of data you need—eliminating massive or even size-prohibitive data downloads.
Multiple File Formats
OPeNDAP can serve and access data in multiple formats (such as NetCDF and HDF), so you don’t have to worry about conversions or formatting.
Streamlined Workflows
OPeNDAP works with the tools you already use, such as MATLAB, IDL, R, Panoply, and Python libraries like Pydap, netCDF4, and Xarray.
Benefits for Those Managing & Providing Data
Reduced Costs
By allowing users to request and retrieve specific subsets of data, OPeNDAP reduces the need for massive data transfers and reduces the costs of data storage and bandwidth.
Integration with Data Tools
OPeNDAP works with the tools and libraries that end users (especially those in the Earth sciences) are already utilizing: Python, R, MATLAB, IDL, Ferret, and more.
Broad Compatibility
OPeNDAP supports a wide range of data formats and types, making it a versatile choice and “one-stop shop” for serving diverse datasets.
Legacy Data Interoperability
OPeNDAP servers can accept multiple types of data inputs and present multiple views of them—taking in early HDF, for example, and serving them as netCDF4, XML, HTML, and more.
Customizability
Because the OPeNDAP protocol is open-source, developers can customize or extend it to fit your operational requirements and data specifications.
Discoverability
OPeNDAP’s standardized metadata and data structuring guidelines make datasets more discoverable and accessible, simplifying data sharing and collaboration.
Want to empower remote Open Data Access?
By offering a simple process for remote access and manipulation of large data sets, OPeNDAP empowers researchers and other end users to collaborate without barriers.
