Manuals: AutoDRM Service

>>NOTICE: The AutoDRM system is slated for retirement on or after January 1, 2018<<

For the last 15 years, IRIS DMC has provided access to the BUD real time data system using an IMS-standard batch request mechanism called AutoDRM. This is a legacy service that has seen little in the way of activity in the past year and, due to technical difficulties sustaining its operation, we have decided it is time to retire AutoDRM in favor of other technologies that serve a majority of our users. As of January 1, 2018, IRIS DMC will begin the proceedings for dismantling the AutoDRM system, so we ask that users seek alternate approaches to requesting data from IRIS DMC.

Introduction

The AutoDRM program used at the IRIS DMC is based on the specifications of IMS1.0 standard and written in C by by Instrumental Software Technologies, Inc. (ISTI) under the contract with the Data Management Center of IRIS. (Note that this is an experimental installation and your feedback is welcome.)

The protocol of the request/data exchange for this AutoDRM generally follows the specifications of IMS1.0. IMS1.0 is very similar to GSE2.1. PDF documentation that includes a description of the IMS1.0 format can be downloaded from the Prototype International Data Center web site at:

http://www.isc.ac.uk/standards/isf/download/ims1_0.pdf

Access to the AutoDRM Service

AutoDRM data requests emailed to the IRIS DMC should be addressed as follows:

autodrm@iris.washington.edu

To receive help message, send an e-mail to the above address with the word “help” in the subject line or in the the body of the message. Do not attempt to format HELP as an IMS1.0 request:

BEGIN IMS1.0
HELP
STOP

will be considered an invalid request since it lacks required environmental lines! Currently the DMC AutoDRM supports five types of request:

  • STATION
  • CHANNEL
  • WAVEFORM
  • OUTAGE
  • RESPONSE

Any request must contain keywords with parameters formatted according to IMS1.0 specifications (starting at column 1), depending on what you would like to receive.

AutoDRM requests are not case sensitive.

Minimum Requirements

Minimum requirements are:

1. The first line must start with begin ims1.0

begin ims1.0

2. The second line must present the message type. The only message type supported by this AutoDRM is REQUEST

msg_type request

3. The request should contain a message ID, which can be any readable and meaningful for a sender string, for example:

msg_id send_me_stations_432

4. The request should contains a return e-mail address where the data will be sent. Note that for security reasons, the future versions of AutoDRM could be restricted to sending data to only the sender of the request mail. Currently, there is no such restriction.

email joeschmoe@mysite.com

5. The request itself and the environmental lines should follow. The environmental lines are limited to any of the following six:

  • NET_LIST
  • STA_LIST (required)
  • CHAN_LIST (required)
  • AUX_LIST (location ID)
  • TIME (required)
  • TIME_STAMP

NET_LIST is formally not supported by IMS1.0 format, so we follow the guidelines of GSE2.1 format in this case.

Requests which do not include STA_LIST, CHAN_LIST, and TIME environmental lines are considered invalid by the DMC AutoDRM. Below is an example of the environmental lines in the request. There a requester asks for some data (either STATION, CHANNEL, WAVEFORM, OUTAGE, or RESPONSE) related to network AZ, station BZN, channels starting with B* for the time period between 06:00 and 08:00 UTC on October, 12.

net_list az
sta_list bzn
chan_list b*
time 2001/10/12 06:00 to 2001/10/12 08:00

We indicate the type of data we are looking for in the request line.

The following formats and subformats of request are currently supported by DMC AutoDRM

  • station ims1.0 – IMS1.0 request for station list;
  • channel ims1.0 – IMS1.0 channel list request;
  • outage ims1.0 – IMS 1.0 list of outages request
  • response ims1.0 – IMS1.0 list of responses request (the output format is DMC RESP!)
  • waveform ims 1.0:cm6 – IMS1.0 waveform request (CM6 is the output format)
  • waveform ims 1.0:int – IMS1.0 waveform request (integer is the output format)
  • waveform ims 1.0:msd – IMS1.0 waveform request (MiniSEED is the output format; binary data are sent as MIME encoded attachment);

How the DMC AutoDRM works

The DMC AutoDRM runs on the computer bud.iris.washington.edu as a cron job every few minutes. In case of a processing large data requests, processing can take a large time. Therefore, the processing of your request can vary from few minutes to few tens of minutes.

WAVEFORM and OUTAGES requests read the data from the DMC BUD data storage. See the DMS Newsletter article for additional information about BUD.

Currently BUD contains about 2-3 month of data for the following NETWORKS:

AK AR AU AZ CI EQ ER GE GT H2 IC IE II IM IU KN KZ LB LD MB MN NL NM NN PN PR RE SC UO US UU UW WY XX

DMC AutoDRM polls the IRIS DMS database to service RESPONSE, STATION, and CHANNEL requests. Note that the set of channels in the BUD system is a small fraction of the channels existing in IRIS DMS station database.

Sample requests

Note that some samples below use upper case for all keywords (such as BEGIN, MSG_TYPE, MSG_ID, …etc.) for the purpose of clarity, but the user can type the keywords in either lower-case or upper-case:

STATION request sample

All request lines in an email must be left justified, i.e. start at the 1st column.

BEGIN ims1.0
MSG_TYPE request
MSG_ID 2001/08/15/sta1
EMAIL comserv@java.isti.com
STA_LIST KMI, BJ*, EN*, HI*, LSA
TIME 1994/4/15 to 2001/9/16 8:50:59
STATION ims1.0
TIME_STAMP
STOP

CHANNEL request sample

begin ims1.0
msg_type request
msg_id 2001/08/15/chan1
email comserv@java.isti.com
sta_list KMI, BJ*, EN*, HI*, LSA
chan_list BHE, H*Z, BH*
aux_list 0*, 10, *0
time 1994/4/15 to 2001/9/16 8:50:59
time_stamp
channel ims1.0
stop

OUTAGE request sample

begin ims1.0
msg_type request
msg_id 2001/8/16/outage01
email comserv@java.isti.com
sta_list *
chan_list *
aux_list *
time 1990/4/15 to 2001/9/16 8:50:59
time_stamp
outage ims1.0
stop

WAVEFORM request sample

For DMC version of AutoDRM to request MINISEED format.

begin ims1.0
msg_type request
msg_id 2001/08/22/wa03
email comserv@java.isti.com
sta_list AAK
chan_list BHE, BHN
aux_list *
time 2001/7/20 17:37:8.345 to 2001/7/20 17:56:02
waveform ims1.0:MSD
time_stamp
stop

RESPONSE request sample

begin ims1.0
msg_type request
msg_id 2001/8/23/response05
email comserv@java.isti.com
sta_list AAK
chan_list bh*, LH*
aux_list *
time 1990/4/15 to 2001/9/16 8:50:59
time_stamp
response ims1.0
stop

Size limitations

  • The maximum size of the data sent by mail is limited by 10 MB
  • The data which are from 10 MB to 100 MB in size are placed in the ftp directory and a notice is sent to the requester.
  • The requests for data larger than 100 MB are not shipped. A notice about the size limitation is sent to the requester by e-mail.

Deviations from IMS1.0 format requirements and caveats

  • DMC AutoDRM supports net_list environmental line which is not supported by IMS1.0. However this environmental line is optional and can be ignored in the requests.
  • DMC AutoDRM supports aux_list environmental line.
  • The RESPONSE type data are formatted in the DMC RESP format (similar to the output of rdseed -r), but not in the IMS1.0 RESPONSE data format
  • The format of the RESPONSE request follows the restrictions of IMS, however, AutoDRM searches for the response data not for the provided time span, but only attempts to find a response for the provided start time. For example a request for RESPONSE with a TIME environmental line TIME 1990/4/15 to 2001/9/16 8:50:59 will find no responses if the station was not installed before 1990/4/15. This behavior will be fixed in the future releases and is related to the DMC query program for response gathering.
  • Any request which does not contain the following environmental lines (STA_LIST, CHAN_LIST, TIME) is considered invalid.

Release date:     Modified date:

09:51:48 v.01697673