Driven by a FAIRest platform vision, the Climate Data Store (CDS) is being modernized into a new fully extensible, configurable, plug-in infrastructure to manage booming workload, surging computing demand and better serve its current and future users.
This modernization process is complex and includes AGILE development, different components being developed in parallel, migration of data.
Perhaps the best way to relate to the magnitude of the CDS modernization is to imagine going through the process of renovating your own home to better respond to the needs of a growing family!
Most of the modernization work has already been transparently happening in the background. The process has now reached the stage where there is still some touch up to do but the exciting time of moving back into the house can clearly start.
From the perspective of the CDS, this means that data is now being migrated onto the new infrastructure, unfortunately impacting services. This will take several weeks to complete. During this migration time period, users should therefore be expecting some unavoidable disruption and degradation of service on the CDS including:
- longer queues
- requests being canceled
- temporary closure of queues
- requests failing with unusual error messages
- etc...
The new modernized CDS is expected to be launched in Spring 2024. Relevant information (e.g. activation of new single sign-on ECMWF account) will be shared with CDS users nearer the time of the launch.
Users of the CDS Toolbox should however immediately take note that the CDS Toolbox will be discontinued and is not migrated to the new CDS infrastructure.
A new interoperable open-source Python package, EarthKit, will be made available (post new CDS launch) to provide software tools for weather and climate workflows that simplify data access, analysis, visualisation and much more. EarthKit will overtake the functional scope of the CDS Toolbox, providing improved performance, transparency and compatibility with datasets beyond CDS.
We understand the inconvenience the disruptions are causing during this time. The CDS team is working hard at keeping disruption to a minimum.
We will keep our users informed with the latest details on this announcement page. We therefore recommend users to "Watch" this page to receive email notifications of updates on this announcement.
We thank our users for their patience during this significant modernization of the CDS which will enable exciting scientific developments and an overall better service to all ECMWF users.
ECMWF Support
