Skip to content

awslabs/open-data-registry

Registry of Open Data on AWS

A repository of publicly available datasets that are available for access from AWS resources. Note that datasets in this registry are available via AWS resources, but they are not provided by AWS; these datasets are owned and maintained by a variety of government organizations, researchers, businesses, and individuals.

What is this for?

When data is shared on AWS, anyone can analyze it and build services on top of it using a broad range of compute and data analytics products, including Amazon EC2, Amazon Athena, AWS Lambda, and Amazon EMR. Sharing data in the cloud lets data users spend more time on data analysis rather than data acquisition. This repository exists to help people promote and discover datasets that are available via AWS resources.

How are datasets added to the registry?

Each dataset in this repository is described with metadata saved in a YAML file in the /datasets directory. We use these YAML files to provide three services:

The YAML files use this structure:

Name:
Description:
Documentation:
Contact:
ManagedBy:
UpdateFrequency:
Tags:
  -
License:
Citation:
Resources:
  - Description:
    ARN:
    Region:
    Type:
    Explore:
DataAtWork:
  Tutorials:
    - Title:
      URL:
      NotebookURL:
      AuthorName:
      AuthorURL:
      Services:
  Tools & Applications:
    - Title:
      URL:
      AuthorName:
      AuthorURL:
  Publications:
    - Title:
      URL:
      AuthorName:
      AuthorURL:
DeprecatedNotice:
ADXCategories:
  -    

The metadata required for each dataset entry is as follows:

Field Type Description & Style
Name String The public facing name of the dataset. Spell out acronyms and abbreviations. We do not require "AWS" or "Open Data" to be in the dataset name. Must be between 5 and 130 characters.
Description String A high-level description of the dataset. Only the first 600 characters will be displayed on the homepage of the Registry of Open Data on AWS
Documentation URL A link to documentation of the dataset, preferably hosted on the data provider's website or Github repository.
Contact String May be an email address, a link to contact form, a link to GitHub issues page, or any other instructions to contact the producer of the dataset
ManagedBy String The name of the laboratory, institution, or organization who is responsible for the data ingest process. Avoid using individuals. If your institution manages several datasets hosted by the Public Dataset Program, please list the managing institution identically. For an example why, check out the Managed By section of the TARGET dataset
UpdateFrequency String An explanation of how frequently the dataset is updated
Tags List of strings Select tags that are related to an intrinsic property or descriptor of the dataset. A list of supported tags is maintained in the tags.yaml file in this repo. If you want to recommend a tag that is not included in tags.yaml, please submit a pull request to add it to that file.
License String An explanation of the dataset license and/or a URL to more information about data terms of use of the dataset
Citation (Optional) String Custom citation language to be used when citing this dataset, which will be appended to the default citation used for all datasets. Default citation language is as follows: "[DATASET NAME] was accessed on [DATE] at registry.opendata.aws/[dataset]"
Resources List of lists A list of AWS resources that users can use to consume the data. Each resource entry requires the metadata below:
Resources > Description String A technical description of the data available within the AWS resource, including information about file formats and scope.
Resources > ARN String Amazon Resource Name for resource, e.g. arn:aws:s3:::commoncrawl
Resources > Region String AWS region unique identifier, e.g. us-east-1
Resources > Type String Can be CloudFront Distribution, DB Snapshot, S3 Bucket, or SNS Topic. A list of supported resources is maintained in the resources.yaml file in this repo. If you want to recommend a resource that is not included in resources.yaml, please submit a pull request to add it to that file.
Resources > RequesterPays (Optional) Boolean Only appropriate for Amazon S3 buckets, indicates whether the bucket has Requester Pays enabled or not.
Resources > AccountRequired (Optional) String Is an AWS account required to access this data? Note that while Requester Pays means you will need an account, this is meant for cases where an account is required outside of that scenario.
Resources > ControlledAccess (Optional) String Only appropriate for Amazon S3 buckets with controlled access. Please provide a URL to instructions on how to request and gain access to the S3 bucket.
Resources > Explore (Optional) List of strings Additional links that can be used to explore the bucket resource, i.e. links to S3 JS Explorer index.html for the bucket or the AWS S3 console.
DataAtWork [> Tutorials, Tools & Applications, Publications] (Optional) List of lists A list of links to example tutorials, tools & applications, publications that use the data.
DataAtWork [> Tutorials, Tools & Applications, Publications] > Title String The title of the tutorial, tool, application, or publication that uses the data.
DataAtWork [> Tutorials, Tools & Applications, Publications] > URL URL A link to the tutorial, tool, application, or publication that uses the data.
DataAtWork [> Tutorials, Tools & Applications, Publications] > AuthorName String Name(s) of person or entity that created the tutorial, tool, application, or publication. Limit scientific publication author lists to the first six authors in the format Last Name First Initial, followed by 'et al'.
DataAtWork [> Tutorials, Tools & Applications, Publications] > AuthorURL (Optional) String URL for person or entity that created the tutorial, tool, application, or publication.
DataAtWork [> Tutorials] > NotebookURL (Optional) URL A link to a Jupyter notebook (.ipynb) on GitHub that shows how this data can be used.
DataAtWork [> Tutorials] > Services (Optional) String For tutorials only. List AWS Services applied in your tutorial. A list of supported AWS services is maintained in the services.yaml file in this repo. If you want to recommend a resource that is not included in services.yaml, please submit a pull request to add it to that file.
DeprecatedNotice (Optional) String Only appropriate for datasets that are being retired, indicates to users that the dataset will soon be deprecated and should include the date that the dataset will no longer be available.
ADXCategories List of strings Allowed categories can be found in adx_categories.yaml, at most, 2 can be added. Adding categories to your listing will improve searchability within the AWS Data Exchange.

Note also that we use the name of each YAML file as the URL slug for each dataset on the Registry of Open Data on AWS website. E.g. the metadata from 1000-genomes.yaml is listed at https://registry.opendata.aws/1000-genomes/

Example entry

Here is an example of the metadata behind this dataset registration: https://registry.opendata.aws/noaa-nexrad/

Name: NEXRAD on AWS
Description: Real-time and archival data from the Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) network.
Documentation: https://github.com/awslabs/open-data-docs/tree/main/docs/noaa/noaa-nexrad
Contact: noaa.bdp@noaa.gov
ManagedBy: "[NOAA](http://www.noaa.gov/)"
UpdateFrequency: New Level II data is added as soon as it is available.
Tags:
  - aws-pds
  - earth observation
  - natural resource
  - weather
  - meteorological
  - sustainability
License: There are no restrictions on the use of this data.
Resources:
  - Description: NEXRAD Level II archive data
    ARN: arn:aws:s3:::noaa-nexrad-level2
    Region: us-east-1
    Type: S3 Bucket
    Explore:
    - '[Browse Bucket](https://noaa-nexrad-level2.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html)'
  - Description: NEXRAD Level II real-time data
    ARN: arn:aws:s3:::unidata-nexrad-level2-chunks
    Region: us-east-1
    Type: S3 Bucket
  - Description: "[Rich notifications](https://github.com/awslabs/open-data-docs/tree/main/docs/noaa/noaa-nexrad#subscribing-to-nexrad-data-notifications) for real-time data with filterable fields"
    ARN: arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:684042711724:NewNEXRADLevel2ObjectFilterable
    Region: us-east-1
    Type: SNS Topic
  - Description: Notifications for archival data
    ARN: arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:811054952067:NewNEXRADLevel2Archive
    Region: us-east-1
    Type: SNS Topic
DataAtWork:
  Tutorials:
    - Title: NEXRAD on EC2 tutorial
      URL: https://github.com/openradar/AMS_radar_in_the_cloud
      Services: EC2
      AuthorName: openradar
      AuthorURL: https://github.com/openradar
    - Title: Using Python to Access NCEI Archived NEXRAD Level 2 Data (Jupyter notebook)
      URL: http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/gist/dopplershift/356f2e14832e9b676207
      AuthorName: Ryan May
      AuthorURL: http://dopplershift.github.io
    - Title: Mapping Noaa Nexrad Radar Data With CARTO
      URL: https://carto.com/blog/mapping-nexrad-radar-data/
      AuthorName: Stuart Lynn
      AuthorURL: https://carto.com/blog/author/stuart-lynn/
  Tools & Applications:
    - Title: nexradaws on pypi.python.org - python module to query and download Nexrad data from Amazon S3
      URL: https://pypi.org/project/nexradaws/
      AuthorName: Aaron Anderson
      AuthorURL: https://github.com/aarande
    - Title: WeatherPipe - Amazon EMR based analysis tool for NEXRAD data stored on Amazon S3
      URL: https://github.com/stephenlienharrell/WeatherPipe
      AuthorName: Stephen Lien Harrell
      AuthorURL: https://github.com/stephenlienharrell
  Publications:
    - Title: Seasonal abundance and survival of North America’s migratory avifauna determined by weather radar
      URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0666-4
      AuthorName: Adriaan M. Dokter, Andrew Farnsworth, Daniel Fink, Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez, Wesley M. Hochachka, Frank A. La Sorte, Orin J. Robinson, Kenneth V. Rosenberg & Steve Kelling
    - Title: Unlocking the Potential of NEXRAD Data through NOAA’s Big Data Partnership
      URL: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0021.1
      AuthorName: Steve Ansari and Stephen Del Greco

How can I contribute?

You are welcome to contribute dataset entries or usage examples to the Registry of Open Data on AWS. Please review our contribution guidelines.

New to Github and contributing via pull requests?

In addition to Github's getting started documentation, this video tutorial shows the complete end-to-end process of contributing to this repository.