Real-time data is delivered to authorised or licensed users either ​directly by ECMWF or via the chosen Member or Co-operating State National Meteorological Service. This choice is specified during the ordering process.

Real-time forecast data delivery - technical set-up

Our technical team will set up the dissemination of the data based on the information you have provided in the registration form that you completed when you ordered your real-time data.

We will contact you via the ticket you would have open with us to let you know that the set-up is ready and that dissemination can start.

Required information for delivery of real-time forecast data from ECMWF

We deliver real-time products via ftp, sftp, AmazonS3, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Please click on one of the options below to see the exact requirements for all these methods. 

Please note that the speed of transfers can vary according to geographic location, service provider and internet stability/connectivity.


 Google Cloud Platform

For Google Cloud Platform, we will need the following information:

  • Bucket Name (mandatory)
  • Client Email (mandatory)
  • clientId (mandatory)
  • prefix (optional)
  • privateKey (mandatory)
  • privateKeyId (mandatory)
  • projectId (mandatory)
  • scheme = e.g. https

These can be found/extracted from the Google service account credentials file.

 Microsoft Azure Platform

We will need the following information:

  • SAS (SharedAccessSignature) URL with access to service, container and objects. (The URL should contain parameter srt=sco).

  • Blob container name

We need the following permissions: blob.upload(), blob.exists(), blob.delete(), blob.upload(), blob.download() and blob.getProperties().

Amazon AWS Platform

We will need the following information:

  • aws_access_key_id 
  • aws_secret_access_key
  • Bucket name

We need the following permissions: s3:DeleteObject, s3:PutObject, s3:GetObject, s3:ListBuckets

For Amazon S3 transfers, ECMWF can also offer Acceleration mode, as well as as Dualstack. Please let us know if you wish to use these features. 

We can also configure S3-compatible third-party storage systems (e.g. Google Cloud Storage via the S3 API). Please ensure the provided endpoint and credentials follow the standard S3 format.

 We will need the following information:
  • host name or IP
  • protocol (ftp/sftp)
  • username and password with permission to read-write and rename
  • receiving directory

Alternatively, for SFTP, we support SSH key-based authentication. In this setup, we will provide our public SSH key, which should be added to the appropriate user's list of authorized keys on your server (typically in the .ssh/authorized_keys file within the user's home directory). Once configured, we will initiate connections using the corresponding private key.

Please note that for ftp we support the following ports:
21 (standard)
2121 (non standard)

For sftp we support:
22 (standard)
2222 (non standard)



Our dissemination system is built in such a way that we push files. When we disseminate data from our data store, we are not only pushing objects. We are also checking if an existing object is not there already and if it is the case then we will delete it. The latter is, for example, necessary if a previous file was corrupted and we need to resend it. This means that we need permissions to rename and overwrite files we put into the receiving directory.  

During the transmission, dissemination files have the extension '.tmp'. If the transmission is unsuccessful for whatever reason, it is repeated.  The file gets renamed to its original name only after successful transmission.


Set up your firewall to accept FTP and/or SFTP connections from the following hosts:

INTERNET:

  • 136.156.192.0/26
  • 136.156.193.0/26

RMDCN:

  • 136.156.196.0/26
  • 136.156.197.0/26

For servers in America, add

  • 195.190.82.172
  • 195.190.82.140

Access to ECPDS

On 31 March 2023, ECMWF retired the ActivIdentity (HID) Security Tokens that have been used to provide a two-factor (strong) authentication access to ECMWF systems since 2007, and has replaced these with a TOTP (Time-based One-Time Password) Client application. 

To access ECPDS you will need to configure TOTP.

Please find further details on the set up here:

Using Time-based One-Time Passwords





Create a support ticket in our Support portal