EarthGrid
Sharing data across networks
Ben Leinfelder
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis,
University of California Santa Barbara
JAM 2008
October 22th, 2008

“Provide access to disparate
data on different networks.”

Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity

Metacat Data Repository
• Distributed data system
• Archive data and metadata
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<eml> .... | | | ....
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<dataset> .... | | ....
<eml> .... ....
<eml>
<dataset>.... | ....
..........
<dataset>
..........
</dataset>
..........
</dataset>
</eml>
</eml></dataset>
</eml>

Global Metacat Deployments

Marine Cluster South Savannah Cluster
African
Addo Data
Network
Tsitsikama Grahamstown Phalabora
Karoo
Mapungubwe
Cape Town U
Cape Town
SAEON Kruger Marakele
Wilderness San Parks
Mozambique
AND PISCO
GCE LTER KNB II KNB 1 ESA
... (26) NCEAS
Knowledge Network for OBFS
Biocomplexity (KNB)

KNB Global Data Distribution

Diverse Data Systems
• KNB Repository
– Experimental data, survey data, spatial
raster and vector data
– Ecological Metadata Language (EML)
• KU DiGIR
– Museum specimen collection and
taxonomic information
– Darwin Core
http://www.specifysoftware.org/Informatics/informaticsdigir

Synthetic Data Analysis
Publish specimen data
Store specimen data
Identify species
!
Store observation data
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Document data <eml>
<eml>
<eml>
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<dataset> .... | | ....
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<dataset> ....
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| ....
Publish datasets
..........
<dataset>
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</dataset>
Morpho
..........
</dataset>
</eml>
</eml></dataset>
</eml>

EarthGrid Data Providers
• Light-weight interface to
underlying systems a
EarthGrid
• Hide complexity
• Low threshold for b
implementation
c

EarthGrid Data Consumers
• Standard communication protocol
• Common methods across systems
EarthGrid
x z
y
• Allows simplified data access by clients
• Exposes data to more software

The Usual Suspects
✓ Search
EarthGrid
Provider
✓ Authenticate
✓ Read
✓ Write

KNB Software Suite
<attribute id=\"att.5\">
<attributeName>avesr91</attributeName>
<attributeLabel>Average Species Richness for 1991</attributeLabel>
<attributeDefinition>The average species richness for the field in 1991
</attributeDefinition>
Data Storage
Metadata
<storageType>float</storageType>
<measurementScale>
<ratio>
<eml/>
<unit><standardUnit>dimensionless</standardUnit></unit>
<precision>0.1</precision>
<numericDomain id=\"nd.5\">
<numberType>real</numberType>
<bounds>
<minimum exclusive=\"true\">0</minimum>
</bounds>
</numericDomain>
</ratio>
</measurementScale>
</attribute>
You are here
Data Management
Data Analysis
Morpho

EarthGrid Search in Kepler

Species Distribution Modeling

Distribution Predictions
Current 2020 2050

DataNetONE
(Observation Network for Earth)
• ‘New institution’ for data preservation

DataNetONE
(Observation Network for Earth)
• Scalable. Flexible. Sustainable.
Current 30+ years horizon ????

Acknowledgements
• This material is based upon work supported by:
– The National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers
9980154 (KDI), 0618501 (FIRST) and 0225676 (SEEK).
– The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, a
Center funded by NSF (Grant Number 0072909), the
University of California, and the UC Santa Barbara campus.
– The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
• Resources
– http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecoinfo
– http://seek.ecoinformatics.org
– http://knb.ecoinformatics.org
– http://lno.lternet.edu/projects/pasta
– http://sbc.lternet.edu
–