Big Sur

Introduction

Big Sur is a database framework that supports investigations leveraging Sequoia 2000 technology. This introductory section describes:

User Community

The user community that motivates Big Sur design.

Big Sur Framework

The layers that comprise the Big Sur framework.

End to End Problems in EOSDIS

This NASA-sponsored multi-year project is investigating alternative data management strategies for NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS), and includes University of California researchers at Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara.

Alpine Snow Hydrology

This EOSDIS Interdisciplinary Science Investigation is developing a better understanding of the Earth's hydrologic cycle by using remote sensing and field data to monitor hydrological conditions and drive hydrologic models.

Big Sur Framework

Big Sur is composed of three primary layers:

Base Schema

The database schema, implemented in the Illustra object-relational database, is composed of sharable types and tables, which together we refer to as the schema building blocks. We describe how this building block approach works, organized as follows:

Design Approach

We explain why a typical schema design approach does not scale for the Big Sur user community and describe an alternate approach based on geospatial data standards.

Base Schema

We describe the schema building blocks, written in SQL and C, that support Big Sur applications. Researchers use these building blocks to create a database for a particular application.

Middleware & Tools

This section describes interfaces between the base schema and the application domains. Most Big Sur application programming is in this layer and uses a variety of languages in addition to SQL and C, such as TCL and C++.

Middleware

We describe our middleware approach and the Big Sur Version 1 implementation using tcl/tk. For Big Sur Version 2, we plan to provide a standard interface for hooking in external functions and processes.

Tools

We describe a few end-user tools in development to support database access.

Data Domains

This section describes the science data domains that Big Sur supports, focusing on the issues database developers need to understand to design database schemas and applications.

Climate Models

Simulations of oceanic and atmospheric general circulation models (GCM) provide investigators with insights into global climate change. The models generate synoptic events, such as cyclones, hurricanes, weather fronts, and blocking conditions. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, are working on the extraction of spatial and temporal patterns to help scientists locate areas of interest for further investigation.

Remote Sensing

Data include satellite images from a variety of satellite platforms and sensors.

Field Data

Data include a variety of measurements collected by researchers in the field.

Acknowledgements

Big Sur incorporates the efforts and ideas of many people: Jean Anderson (UCSB), Paul Brown (UCB), Jim Davidson (UCSB), Frank Davis (UCSB), Debbie Donahue (UCSB), Jeff Dozier (UCSB), Bill Farrell (SAIC), Jim Frew (UCSB), Kenn Gardels (UCB), Jim Gray (JGRI), Charles Kellogg (CERES), Roberto Mechoso (UCLA), Edmond Mesrobian (UCLA), Dave Siegel (UCSB), Keith Sklower (UCB), Joe Spahr (UCLA), Mike Stonebraker (UCB), Richard Troy (UCB) .

A partial list of sponsors include NASA grants NAG 5-2224, NAG 5-2223, NAGW-2602 .
Complete funding citations for each project is available by following the specific project links.

Graphics icons for this html draft are from Rutgers University.

Sequoia Glossary