Subject: Summary Datamanagement Question

From: Huub van Dam <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2000 17:53:14 +0000

Dear all,

Recently I asked the question below and I would like to summarize the
one answer I got with many thanks to Ferenc Csizmadia.

Best regards, Huub

Question:
=======

I have been asked to give a talk on scientific data management to bring
forward the requirements of the chemical community. So I would like to
invite any comments or references on topics like:

- Datastorage: What data do we need to store, how much of it and for how

long?
- Interoperability: Different data formats and programs and to make
everything (not) work together.
- Visualisation: What and how to visualise (and what does it show)?
- Analysis: Storing tons of data is one thing but how to extract
meaningful information from all that? What kind of analysis do we want
to do?
- Any other aspect that comes to mind.

Reply:
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Dear Huub,

We apply the following principles at ChemAxon:
- the data management system should work in every OS
- the all data should be stored in (one or more) SQL capable
relational database(s)
- the system should communicate with the database engine through
a standard interface.
- (if possible) the data should be displayed in HTML format, so
the queries could be handled from browsers.
These requirements can be satisfied using the Java programming
language. The standard interface to the databases can be JDBC.
HTML pages can be generated by JSP (Java Server Pages) scripts.
We created JChem, a Java development tool for creating custom
systems that handle chemical structures (http://www.jchem.com).
Similar solutions can also be applied to other types of
scientific data.

--

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Huub van Dam                               E-mail: [email-masked]
CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory                  phone: +44-1925-603362
Daresbury, Warrington                         fax: +44-1925-603634
Cheshire, UK
WA4 4AD

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