The OpenArchive is an file based archive. The data is not stored in a database but in regular files. The FEWS FSS writes the data files directly to the archive data folder from an archive export workflow.
The time series are stored in NetCDF-files. Other data types are stored in xml or regular text files.
To facilitate searching in the archive a catalogue is used. The catalogue is based on Elastic, which is an open source tool for indexing data. The catalogue is populated by the harvester.
The harvester scans the data folder to discover which data sets are available in the archive and updates the catalogue accordingly. THREDDS, an open source software tool, is used to make the data accessible by FEWS and other third party applications. By using THREDDS the data can be downloaded by using HTTP. It addition THREDDS also supports protocols such as OpenDAP and WMS.
The FEWS PI-webservice can be used in combination with the OpenArchive. The seamless integration connects the FEWS data store with the archive. If data is requested from FEWS the data store will automatically retrieve the data from the OpenArchive if the data is expired from the FEWS data store.
