GFZ ISDC portal - Unique door to data and information

Bernd Ritschel, GFZ Potsdam, Germany

The new Information System and Data Center (ISDC) portal developed, operated and hosted by the GFZ Data Center now is integrating geopysical, geodetic as well as atmospheric and ionospheric data and information mainly derived and processed from payload instruments on the CHAMP and GRACE satellites but also from ground station based instruments like GPS receiver or superconducting gravimeters operating isolated or in networks.

Almost 1000 registered scientists and groups of scientists are using the new ISDC portal, which is providing more than 9 million long term archived products each consisting of one or more data files plus one standardised metadata file according to the GFZ product philosophy. The products are classified into 260 different product types and depending on the processing status labeled with 5 different levels.

After a registration on the portal the ISDC user can choose between different methods of data mining according to the specific kind of request. These data mining tools range from simple product type dependent data retrieval forms via a product-id list-based batch mode to a virtual directory-based product browser in order to request the required data and metadata.

Because of authorized data access only, every user has an own ISDC FTP directory where after requesting products the copies of the original data sets are transferred from the inner firewall online product archive or from the long term hierarchical storage management system. These user driven and ISDC system controlled procedures enable a high data availability and security as well as the chance to know the ISDC users and their requirements in order to get a feedback to the producers and the ISDC operators for further improvements and future developments.

The software and hardware architecture of the ISDC system, the ISDC product retrieval and monitoring features as well as the first experiences with the new ISDC portal and future activities related to thematic ontology-based access services to the products including different kinds of visualisation tools are described in this presentation.

Keywords: Data Archives, Data Quality, Data Protection & Data Security, Metadata, Ontology, Data Format, Data Exchange and Interoperability, Data Policies, Data Visualization, Information Retrieval, e-Science, Geophysical, Geodetic, Atmoshperic and Spatial Data