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We’re excited to announce that we are migrating the archiving of miniSEED data in the NSF National Geophysical Facility repository from our legacy Seattle data center to a new AWS cloud platform on July 21st, 2026!
For the past many months we have been building and operating new archiving systems in the cloud, fixing issues and gaining confidence. This transition represents a major milestone in the migration of our data management systems to the cloud.
What you need to know
- Non-streaming (batch) miniSEED contributors: migrate to the new dropoff system as soon as possible to avoid interruptions, see details below.
- Streaming (realtime) miniSEED contributors: If we are collecting your data via SeedLink, no changes are needed. If your system doesn’t support SeedLink, please reach out to us.
- Streaming latency monitoring (BUD Monitor) is being retired; a replacement system will be developed for the new platform in the future.
- Data access: No change. Access to miniSEED data is unaffected by this change; many of those systems are already in the cloud.
- Questions? Submit a ticket through the help desk or email help@earthscope.org
While we have worked hard to make this transition as seamless as possible, it is a significant change to a decades-old repository and some unforeseen impacts are possible. Please let us know if you notice anything awry. Thanks for your patience.
As part of this transition, we’re modernizing several of EarthScope’s data submission mechanisms and deprecating legacy tools in favor of systems that are a better fit to our new platform and improved services for contributors.
Non-streaming (batch) miniSEED submission: a new dropoff system
Our new dropoff system transfers data and metadata directly to our cloud platform where it is verified, providing feedback to submitters, and queued for archival. Contributors interact with this system using a command line tool. This replaces all legacy batch transfer methods, including miniseed2dmc. An EarthScope account is needed to use the dropoff system to ensure the user is authorized to submit the data sets, and coordination with EarthScope staff is required for approval.
If you currently submit batch seismic data to EarthScope, please switch to the dropoff system to avoid interruptions. More information can be found in our SDK documentation.
Streaming (realtime) miniSEED submission: SeedLink
For submitting streaming miniSEED data, SeedLink connections are now exclusively required. Please contact us if your network data management system lacks SeedLink support, as we can provide options for implementing this functionality.
By only supporting the SeedLink protocol for incoming realtime streams and eliminating proprietary protocols, we have significantly reduced our system complexity. This allows us to focus on improvements and prepare for future needs.
We also offer access to all of the open streaming data we are receiving via our SeedLink export service. If you notice missing data streams or other issues with our export service please report them to help@earthscope.org.
Streaming latency monitoring: a temporary gap in service
The legacy BUD Monitor site is being retired as part of this transition. A new streaming latency monitoring system will eventually replace it, but in the interim, this capability will be unavailable.
We have maintained the BUD Monitor over many years to provide a view of data flowing into the facility. This observability provides important insight for many contributors and consumers of realtime data streams, and we understand that the temporary gap in this capability will have an impact. We will notify the community once a replacement system is ready.
We understand these changes will require adaptation for users, but we’re committed to working with our community to make this migration as seamless as possible.
Questions? Submit a ticket through the help desk or email help@earthscope.org.