Q about potential availability of MPAS meshes from S3 bucket

[afernandezody]

Hello,
I was wondering if the NCAR Team has considered making the MPAS mesh and static files available from an AWS-S3 bucket. This would accelerate the download of some of the larger files and be a more workable solution to share other meshes such as the 15-3km tropical refinement mentioned by @cwp29 (I was never able to download it from Box). This is simply a suggestion (as I don't know the specific criteria to qualify) but the 'Open Data' program might be an option so that NCAR wouldn't have to burden any cost.
Thanks,
Arturo

 

[Ming Chen]

Arturo,

Would you please clarify what is AWS-S3 bucket and what is the 'Open Data' program? Thanks.

 

[afernandezody]

Hello Ming,
S3 stands for 'Simple Storage Service' which is a scalable storage system and was the first cloud service offered by Amazon (everything else came after it, if my memory serves right). All files are stored in so-called buckets (s3://my-bucket-name) from where they are retrieved. The bucket owner sets the permissions so that the content can be fully accessible by anyone or only by those given access.
OpenData on AWS (https://registry.opendata.aws/) is a platform to share datasets stored in S3 buckets, which is used by several agencies and industries. For example, we always download GFS or NAM datasets from there as it is many times faster than through NOAA. Of course it is a bit more convoluted if you are using other cloud service providers -where you need a gateway- or on-premises HW, but can be done (download speeds will vary).
I'll be happy to provide any further details but AWS staff are usually courteous and can answer questions that I cannot (mainly about costs and any waiver).
Best,
Arturo