VIDARS: Towards Painless Access to Space Physics Data

Space physics data sets are notoriously difficult to access, in particular if one wants to combine data sets from different sources. Part of the problem is finding the data. A myriad of different formats and containers poses another problem. Attempts to consolidate data in centers has not solved the problem. We present the prototype of a system (VIDARS, virtual data access and retrieval system) that addresses these issues. Data remain with their originators, but data sets are given unique names, called UDI (Universal Data Identifier), akin to Internet host names or e-mail addresses. The UDIs are known (registered) to one central server where they and associated meta data can be searched. Data access occurs completely transparent to a user such that for a requested UDI the central server returns the IP address of the data provider where the data can be retrieved using simple XML based protocols. This requires some cooperation from the data providers who need to register their data and implement the data server protocol, which is, however, very simple. The data access API allows for a wide variety of clients, ranging from simple ASCII dumps to sophisticated graphical and data mining applications, where the client never needs to know where the data actually reside.