SeaDataCloud

What we are doing:

Access to marine data is of vital importance for marine research and a key issue for various studies, from the climate change prediction to off shore engineering.

The marine observing system is highly fragmented: in the countries bordering the European seas of the partnership, more than 600 scientific data collecting laboratories from governmental organisations and private industry have been identified. They collect data by using various sensors on board of research vessels, submarines, fixed and drifting platforms, airplanes and satellites, to measure physical, geophysical, geological, biological and chemical parameters, biological species etc. The collected data are neither easily accessible, nor standardized. They are not always validated and their security and availability have to be insured in the future.

SeaDataNet connects together more than 100 data centres aiming at preserving and making re-useable marine observations ranging from ocean physics to chemistry and biology. It provides a standardized infrastructure for managing the large and diverse data sets collected by the oceanographic fleets and the automatic observation systems. The SeaDataNet infrastructure networks and enhances the currently existing infrastructures, which are the national oceanographic data centres or data focal points of 34 countries, active in data collection. The networking of these professional data centres, in a unique virtual data management system provide integrated data sets of standardized quality on-line.

The SeaDataCloud project brings together the SeaDataNet network and 5 EUDAT centers (incuding CSC)  to widen virtual access provision by adding cloud and High Performance Computing (HPC) services. The 5 EUDAT centres will establish a common cloud and computing environment that will be integrated with the SeaDataNet data management infrastructure to provide central caching and cloud computing facilities.

EUDAT will bring in a number of EUDAT common services that will be adopted and, where needed, adapted for upgrading and optimizing the SeaDataNet Common Data Index (CDI) Data Discovery and Access service and for establishing the new SeaDataNet Virtual Research Environment (VRE). All services, upgraded and newly established in the SeaDataCloud project, will be accessible from the SeaDataNet portal. This is both a technical cooperation, bundling expertise and infrastructures, and a strategic cooperation as EUDAT is well engaged in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) initiative and SeaDataNet is well positioned as infrastructure and data management expert for the European marine and ocean data community.

SeaDataNet

The consortium consists of globally renowned scientists and expert organisations in marine biology.

CSC's role is to lead the technical work that is responsible for building the underlying layer, called data infrastructure. CSC is in this area coordinating the participation of other leading European data and computing centers.

The project facilitates international networking and collaboration opportunities of Finnish research groups in the field.with FMI and SYKE directly contributing to the project. SeaDataCloud also strengthens the position of CSC as an international data hub, thereby benefiting the whole Finnish research community.