2011 Unidata NetCDF Workshop > Overview of netCDF
3.3 NetCDF's Niche
Where does netCDF fit among database systems,
XML dialects, international standards,
and competing software?
The netCDF niche is array-oriented scientific data.
- Uses portable files as unit of self-describing data
(unlike databases)
- Emphasizes efficient direct access to data within files (unlike XML)
- Provides a multidimensional array abstraction for scientific
applications (unlike databases and XML)
- Avoids dependencies on external tables and registries (unlike GRIB and BUFR)
- Emphasizes simplicity over power (unlike HDF5)
- Has built-in client support for network access to structured
data from servers
- Has large user community to foster:
- support in third-party applications
- third-party APIs for many programming and scripting languages
- community conventions, such as Climate and
Forecast (CF) metadata conventions
2011 Unidata NetCDF Workshop > Overview of netCDF