Infrastructure and tools for serving, accessing, and analyzing ocean information from the Integrated Ocean Observing System

According to the Integrated Coastal Ocean Observation System (ICOOS) Act of 2009 the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) Enterprise extends across 17 federal agencies and 11 regional associations and includes numerous actors from within those organizations. One of the primary functions IOOS provides is a Data Management and Communications (DMAC) Subsystem that aims to make discoverable and accessible data and information from multiple disciplines across the aforementioned enterprise. With such diverse participation and broad mandate for the types of data included in IOOS, it is unrealistic to expect that a single data center is capable of aggregating, managing, curating, and distributing all of the ocean data of interest to the IOOS enterprise. Instead, the IOOS enterprise implements a distributed data network bound together by a few key features of a shared vision for data discovery and access. This paper will discuss progress and lessons learned from nearly ten years of experience in creating or adapting the standards, tools, and community needed to develop and maintain the distributed data network that will support IOOS efforts in science, operational decision making, and product delivery. The current configuration of the DMAC subsystem of IOOS is a combination of people, process, and technology that provide a service to the nation. The primary service DMAC provides is to deliver well curated and documented ocean data and information to the public using the World Wide Web as the primary platform. Within these three areas (people, process, and technology) choices are made based on resources, policy mandates, available skills, technical maturity and capability, and customer requirements. Collectively the choices within each area determine the architecture of the DMAC system and will form the organization for this paper. The “people” form the main stakeholder groups of IOOS, both the builders and the users, so understanding how these various stakeholder groups work cooperatively to grow the DMAC system is critical to progress. The “process” area determines how the people work together and the policy constraints the system is under. Finally, the “technology” includes the software and standards DMAC implements to address the system needs.