From SwissExperiment

FAQs

Contents 1 FAQs 1.1 General SwissEx 1.2 SensorMap and GSN

General SwissEx

• Is SwissEx only limited to SwissEx partners
  • No. Although we cannot provide a great deal of support to external projects, we actively encourage these projects to use what we have produced and benefit from the advantages

• How can I guarantee that my data will be safe throughout and at the end of SwissEx
  • For time series data, SwissEx uses a distributed infrastructure, so data held at your site is not the responsibility of SwissEx. For metadata entered into the SwissEx wiki, the data is backed-up once per day. At the end of the project (2012), the likelihood is that SwissEx will continue and expand in some form. The likelihood of this will expand with the number of projects using the infrastructure. If this is not the case, we will provide you with a copy of your data and/or a copy of your section of the wiki so that you may install a local installation.

• What steps have been taken to ensure that my data is not made public if I do not want it to be public
  • Metadata: Any page of metadata held in the SwissEx Wiki is automatically password protected to the SwissEx group as soon as you save it. This is why when fieldsite pages are created, you should inform the administrator, so that he can make them public. If you add any further metadata, it should be saved in a namespace (see metadata user guide. When pages are saved in a namespace, e.g. http://www.swiss-experiment.ch/index.php/NAMESPACE:pagename, they are automatically limited to your team. Namespace access is provided to users at the request of the namespace owner.
  • GSN: The GSN web interface can currently either be made public or accessable via a username and password. The team are currently working on virtual sensor based password protection. The access control for GSN is therefore the responsibility of the host organisation.
  • SensorMap: SensorMap uses group based access control. When you register a sensor, you can create a group and add all of your sensors to this group. Only users who have been given access to this group can gain access to the sensor data (although the location and parameters will be made public). The user who created the group maintains sole administrator rights for assigning users to the SensorMap group (carried out under the 'user profile' menu).

SensorMap and GSN

• Why are there 2 data access points: SensorMap and GSN
  • GSN is installed locally at the various institutions who make their data available. If you know the URL to go to to get to that GSN instance, then you can use the data directly from there. GSNs web interface has slightly more advanced querying methods and has the additional functionality of showing the sensor in list form.
  • SensorMap is an interface where all of the data from these GSN instances is made available in one place, hence you can view/download data from e.g. 10 different organisations at once. The next version of SensorMap will allow you to see all of the sensors available and who is responsible, so that you can apply to be added to the SensorMap group for that data, giving you direct access.

• I have old datasets which I wish to keep safe.....can I store this data in the SwissEx infrastructure?
  • Old datasets should be stored in the GSN database and accessed via the GSN web interface or SensorMap. To do this, you should either:
    • create a GSN XML file for the data using the CSV wrapper, allow the data to upload to the database and then delete the source section of the XML file (so that GSN does not continue to try to read data)
    • create a GSN XML file for the data with no source section, then upload your data to the database manually.
  • using either of the above methods, the data will then be made available on the GSN interface.

• I have loggers which I collect manually.....can I store this data in the SwissEx infrastructure?
  • Manually collected logger data should be saved in GSN: create a GSN XML file using the CSV wrapper and assign it a low priority. Save your data to a CSV file referenced by the XML file. Every time you collect your data, append it to the CSV file and GSN will automatically read your data into the database.