PNNL

Abstract

The Scientific Archive Management system at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory provides long-term storage for scientific data to ensure that the data is available for reference and future research. To ease the task of locating data after memories of the data's archived location have dimmed, the system collects and stores metadata as the data is archived. Physical storage is distributed across several inexpensive Linux-based computer systems, and the system is designed to allow easy addition of new storage components without data reorganization. Users may archive data from new domains without system or database modification, a necessary feature in a constantly evolving scientific environment. Users of the archive may control the archive process interactively or set up automated archiving processes to ensure that irreplaceable data is safely stored.