Centralized World-Wide Web Access To OCD Data

Principal Investigator: James C. Hendee
Collaborating scientist(s):

Betty Huss

Luis Quijano (Panasoft)

Objective: Populate a commercial-strength object-oriented database management system (aka, object database, or object server) with all of the Ocean Chemistry Division's (OCD) data.

Rationale: Object technology is endorsed within the OCD data management program, and object databases directly support the application programming language, so the choice was appealing. We forsaw a need to store complex data in the future, so we felt it was best to start with an object database, and the price was attractive, when compared with other commercial databases. Our choice of a system is GemStone/S Object Server.

Method: We have adopted the Object-Oriented Systems Development Life Cycle approach to software development for any large new software projects. The programming language used for GemStone System Management is Smalltalk; however, user interfaces to the database may be constructed using Smalltalk, C, C++, Java and/or HTML. Access to the object server will be via a Web interface and the Internet, utilizing the Object Management Group's Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) software named GemORB.

Accomplishment: Interfaces to the object server have been developed, and data from the SEAKEYS Data Management Program, funded by the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration, Prediction and Modeling (SFERPM) Program , are being automatically transferred to the object server every day. Other SFERPM data will be added soon.

Key reference:
Hendee, J.C. 1997. Object-oriented analysis and design of a near real-time marine environmental data acquisition and reporting system. Proc. 8th Int. Coral Reef Sym 2: 1569-1574.

Whitten, J.L.; Bentley, L.D.; Barlow, V.M. 1994. Systems analysis and design methods, 3rd edition. Richard D. Irwin, Inc.; Boston, MA.

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