Technology Changes and User Community Reaction – An Example from CDDIS

Abstract:

NASA’s Crustal Dynamics Data Information System (CDDIS) has a long and storied past, with nearly forty years serving the space geodesy and geodynamics communities. As such, it has an experienced user community that has developed and applied procedures for accessing data from the CDDIS in a large number of methods. These methods included simple human interaction downloads, complicated scripts looking for specific types and ranges of data, incorporation in operational code bases, use in real-time spacecraft operations, embedded code in appliance firmware and complicated machine-2-machine interactions. When technology updates come along and force changes on a user community, the results can be much more dramatic and disruptive then previously imagined. This is now the case with the CDDIS. Clear text anonymous ftp has been a staple of data distribution at CDDIS for its entire history. At the time, it was a satisfactory protocol: minimalist and functional. However, as technology advanced it was replaced by much better and more secure protocols that used encryption and easier network management. In 2020, CDDIS officially suspended the use of clear text anonymous ftp at CDDIS and required its entire user community to use either Secure Socket Layers (SSL) ftp or the ubiquitous https protocol. This poster will examine the reasons for the change, how the CDDIS communicated the coming changes to its nearly 300,000 users, the reaction from the user community, and lessons learned during the transition.