Hi Robert:
Good advice, thanks.
GEMPAK is an interesting contrast in table management. It uses
hand-maintained mappings of GRIB tables to an assigned variable name. it
is NCEP specific, so cant be used as a general solution to all GRIB
files. NCEP is focused on keeping operational software like AWIPS
current (probably GEMPAK is in this category), and not much else, in
particular archived data is an afterthought. Tools like wgrib and wgrib2
use these hand maintained tables, but its up to the user to ensure that
the tables are current, though users typically dont have the expertise
to know how to do that. The system hangs together likely 99.44% of the
time, but it sometimes "silently fails" by misidentifying variables.
Anyway, the problems with changing names is part of GRIB, regardless of
whether its local or remote. The advantage of remote is that, in
principle, the right thing can be done on the server and clients can
take advantage of it.
Regards,
John
On 4/2/2014 8:03 PM, Robert Mullenax wrote:
I would also add that depending on bundles from Unidata is short sighted. As has
been noted Unidata is not 24/7. The great thing about GEMPAK is it forces you to be
self sufficient at least to the point where you are responsible for your own
downloads. Maybe a greater reliance on local datasets would be a good thing for IDV.
I know that GEMPAK and McIDAS are passé but their are advantages..even in the
teaching and research realm.
On Apr 2, 2014, at 8:08 PM, "Robert Mullenax" <Robert.Mullenax@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I am not a frequent IDV user but the basic rule of being a sys admin or
developer is to not make changes on a Friday afternoon unless you are staffed
24/7. I am a just a met guy and a somewhat annoying presence to Unidata but
that has been my experience over the years as a pretend sys admin and developer.
In other words, test it thoroughly, and don't release on a Friday unless there
is a lot of backup support..
Hang in there,
Robert Mullenax
CSBF/NMSU
On Apr 2, 2014, at 7:38 PM, "John Caron" <caron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi all:
The rollout on friday hit a few snags, compounded by me being sick so I couldnt respond
quickly. "Bundles broke" because there was a file leak that brought the whole
server down. Also there was a problem with the way the new GRIB indexer handled GRIB1
timeType=10. Those problems have been fixed now.
You might think "why dont we just wait?" The problem is that the TDS 4.3 server
is not getting updated as the data changes. We made a decision 2 weeks ago that it wasnt
worth fixing, since the problem is fixed in 4.5. So its in all of our interests to get
4.5 onto thredds.ucar.edu, as soon as possible .
You might think "Why didnt we find these problems before releasing?" Because we
dont have a separate test team, like commercial software release cycle does. We
constantly improve our testing, but plenty gets past us. We rely on the users to find the
last set of bugs. And its all but impossible to get users to try beta software. Fact of
life.
The variable names have not changed. The bundles will still work. We are fixing
the ones that Darryl discovered had changed.
The ncss service changed its service endpoint. Users reading the catalog or
using the html form will pick that up transparently. If you have it hardcoded
in a script, then you need to change it. If its operational, you have to do it
immediately after we switch. Just remove the /grid/ part of your URL. The IDV
doesnt use the ncss service. If theres an actual script user who is using the
ncss service, who cant make changes in a timely manner, let us know and we will
work with you. We dont need to imagine possible scenarios that may not exist.
Right now, we know there's a problem with the radar server, which we will have
fixed by tommorrow. Otherwise, try your bundles against
thredds-test.unidata.ucar.edu. Give it a try, report the problems, we will get
them fixed. When they are fixed, we will make the switch. But please dont wait
a week, do them this week.
Theres typically a long tail of problems that get fixed over time. If you cant
get to it, ok, let us know when you find them and we will fix the problem then.
The IDV could make a contribution here by allowing users to easily update the
URLS in their bundles. The NCEP models are constantly changing, not to mention
the GRIB tables themselves. The idea that URLS can never change is not a real
possibility. Just a fact of life.
We arent releasing 4.5 yet for others to use. We are shaking it out against the
thredds.ucar.edu live server. We dont really have any better options. We are
working really hard to make this work. I would personally appreciate any help
you can give.
Thanks,
John
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