Ambient and configuration databases for the BaBar online system

The design and implementation of the ambient and configuration databases of the BaBar experiment are presented. The Detector Control architecture is used as an example to describe the user interface for storing and retrieving the ambient and configuration data. To provide access to the ambient data before and after are stored in the database a CORBA server has been developed and implemented. It allows Java based browsers to display the data while they are being accumulated.