Scientific data management in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) is currently under construction at Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) for the US Department of Energy (DOE). This laboratory will be used for molecular and environmental sciences research to identify comprehensive solutions to DOE's environmental problems. Major facilities within the EMSL include the Molecular Sciences Computing Facility (MSCF), a laser-surface dynamics laboratory, a high-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) laboratory, and a mass spectrometry laboratory. The EMSL is scheduled to open early in 1997 and will house about 260 resident and visiting scientists. It is anticipated that at least six (6) terabytes of data will be archived in the first year of operation. Both the size of individual datasets and the total amount of data each researcher will manage is expected to become unwieldy and overwhelming for researchers and archive administrators. An object-oriented database management system (OODBMS) and a mass storage system will be integrated to provide an intelligent, automated mechanism to manage data. The resulting system, called the DataBase Computer System (DBCS), will provide total scientific data management capabilities to EMSL users. This paper describes all efforts associated with DBCS-0 and DBCS-1, including software development, key lessons learned, and long-term goals.