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NOTICE: This version of the NSF Unidata web site (archive.unidata.ucar.edu) is no longer being updated.
Current content can be found at unidata.ucar.edu.
To learn about what's going on, see About the Archive Site.
Users of Unidata Data Services: On Friday, March 28, 2014 the Unidata Program Center (UPC) updated the demonstration THREDDS Data Server (TDS) running on thredds.ucar.edu to version 4.5 of the TDS software. After encountering some issues with the updated version, including problems with community members' IDV bundles not loading as expected from thredds.ucar.edu, UPC staff reverted the demonstration server to version 4.3 on April 1st. What happened? UPC staff had became aware that TDS version 4.3 running on thredds.ucar.edu was not keeping some dataset indexes up to date automatically. This situation required manual intervention by UPC staff to keep the indices updated, which, coupled with changes in UPC security procedures following the intrusion on February 20, 2014, increased the urgency of releasing a new TDS version that fixed the problem. After internal testing convinced us that TDS version 4.5 was functioning properly, we followed the normal procedure of updating UPC servers (specifically thredds.ucar.edu) before releasing the package to other sites. This staged release process normally allows us to find and fix "real world" issues that are not caught by internal testing. In the case of TDS 4.5, however, the update brought to light a difference between our internal test servers and the public demonstration server thredds.ucar.edu. These differences caused the demonstration server to crash entirely, which resulted in several problems, including the inability of some IDV bundles to access relevant data. Additionally, there was a problem with the way the new GRIB indexer handled GRIB1 timeType=10 and some changes to GRIB tables from NCEP were not handled in TDS 4.5. What did Unidata do? After receiving problem reports on Monday, March 31, UPC staff reverted the thredds.ucar.edu demonstration server to TDS version 4.3 on Tuesday, April 1. The problems discovered in TDS version 4.5 have since been rectified, but thredds.ucar.edu has not yet been re-updated to TDS version 4.5. What will Unidata do in the future? While the UPC is not funded to be operational data center, and we do not have resources available to ensure 24/7 access to all of our demonstration systems, we understand that many in our community rely on access to UPC servers for teaching and research. We strive to balance the daily needs of community members who use servers managed by the Program Center with development and testing activities aimed at creating tools that can be usefully installed at community members' home sites. (See Unidata's Use Policy.) As a result of this the problems encountered during the recently attempted upgrade, we have committed to implement the following changes to our system configuration and software deployment procedures: 1) We have created a new mailing list, data-service-announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, that will serve as a vehicle for UPC announcements of upcoming changes to data servers operated by the UPC (e.g., IDD, TDS, RAMADDA, ADDE) to our community. This mail list will carry brief synopses of upcoming changes, information about testing processes (including how community members can test the new services), and provide links to additional information on the Unidata web site. The new list will be the conduit for announcements about data servers run by the UPC. We anticipate that this mailing list will have very low traffic, and we encourage anyone who uses data servers run by the UPC to subscribe by sending an e-mail message to data-service-announce-join@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. NB: Be sure to send your message from the e-mail account you want to receive the mailing list messages. To activate your subscription, follow the instructions in the confirmation message that will be sent following your request. 2) We will augment the UPC's core data servers (thredds.ucar.edu, adde.ucar.edu, etc.) with "backup" servers that will allow users to revert to using the most recent stable version if problems are found during an upgrade or other transition. Backup servers will operate during transitions and until reported problems have been addressed. IDV version 5.0, due to be released later this Spring, will include a way for users to switch to the "backup" TDS server if needed. We expect this to be used for critical functions such as teaching classes. 3) We will institute a mechanism whereby community members can submit IDV bundles for inclusion in Unidata's test suite, allowing us to determine when a server change causes the bundles to "break". Note that while being able to include community members' IDV bundles in our in-house, automated testing of new server releases will alert us to some problems, it is not a full substitute for interactive user testing. We will provide more information about the bundle-testing program as we work out the details. We plan to re-update thredds.ucar.edu to TDS 4.5 in mid-May 2014; we will provide at least one week's notice and testing period (announced via the data-service-announce mailing list) prior to this update. Please send any questions/comments/recommendations about any of the ideas above to: Unidata Datastream Support <support-datastream@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> This message is also available on the Unidata web site: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/news/entry/recent_events_concerning_unidata_s Best Regards, The Unidata Program Center Staff -- ********************************************************************** < Unidata User Support UCAR Unidata Program < (303)497-8643 P.O. Box 3000 < support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Boulder, CO 80307 < ---------------------------------------------------------------------- < Unidata Web Support http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/support < ********************************************************************** <
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