Update: SynCron - tools for maintaining synchronised copies of the EMBL
Nucleotide Sequence Database
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We observe that many people still download the full cumulative update file
(cumulative.dat) from the EBI ftp site rather than incremental updates. To
promote usage of the incremental EMBL update files, the EBI and the Swiss
EMBNet node have jointly developed the SynCron tools in order to allow you to
regenerate the cumulative update file at your site reliably from incremental
updates. The tools make use of 'transaction listings' that describe the
update, insert and delete operations to the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database
as represented in the flat-file updates. There is one listing for each update
file (available from ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/embl/new/list/), and
the naming scheme is the same as for incremental and cumulative updates with
the extension ".lis".
Using these tools it should be possible to keep a copy of the EMBL Nucleotide
Sequence Database that exactly matches the contents of the database in operation
at the EBI for external services, with manual intervention required only in the
event of some failure in network transfer of the file, etc. The programs have
recently been updated to facilitate the initial configuration.
SynCron is available by anonymous ftp from:
UNIX Version:
ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/software/unix/listtools/SynCron_004.tar.gz
VMS Version:
(backup/gzip)
ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/software/vms/listtools/SynCron_004.bck-gz
OR
(tar/compress)
ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/software/vms/listtools/SynCron_004.tar_Z
(The _004 version number will change as the programs are updated.)
Matteo diTommaso and Nicole Redaschi
Database Programming Group
EMBL Outstation
The European Bioinformatics Institute
E-mail: ditommaso at ebi.ac.uk, redaschi at ebi.ac.uk
Reinhard Doelz
Biozentrum - University of Basel
EMBnet Node Switzerland
