On 19 April 2011 the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has approved netCDF as a standard:
- http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/1373
- http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/news/entry/open_geospatial_consortium_approves_netcdf
The netCDF library can be enabled with OPeNDAP, thereby allowing for easy remote "data cloud" access of large datasets. Please see thew following tutorial how to get started with using netCDF with OPeNDAP yourselves: http://public.deltares.nl/display/OET/web+overview+of+OPeNDAP+data