Federated Data Discovery and Access Services (DD&AS)

Q2 2026
  • Implementation challenges
    • FAIR metrics & certification

    • Result description

    The DD&AS service facilitates discovery and retrieval of marine datasets from federated Blue Data Infrastructures (BDIs) using a common user interface. The BDIs are leading and authoritative marine data management infrastructures in the European marine research landscape and currently comprise: EMODnet, SeaDataNet, ICOS, SOCAT, EcoTaxa, ELIXIR-ENA, EurOBIS, and EuroArgo-Argo. Data cover physics, chemistry, biology, bathymetry, and genomics. More BDIs will be federated as part of Blue-Cloud 2026, such as SIOS, EMSO, EMODnet Physics, and MGnify. The service can be used stand-alone by external users, while retrieved data can also be pushed into the Blue-Cloud Virtual Research Environment (VRE) as input for data analysis and further research.

    Problem addressed

    Fragmentation of data sources in the marine research community. The DD&AS provides users a common interface (GUI and API) for discovery and retrieval of a large amount of marine data as managed by multiple Blue Data Infrastructures.

    Who can use the result

    All stakeholders in marine science, data consumers. The DD&AS is a public service, which is open to everybody. All data included are also open.

    Timeline

    The final improved and optimized result will be available at the end of the project, 31 June 2026 (Q2 2026). Sustainability of the DD&AS is guaranteed till end 2026. Achieving longer-term sustainability is one of the objectives in the ongoing project.

    How to use the result

    The DD&AS is already operational as a result of the earlier pilot Blue-Cloud project. As part of Blue-Cloud 2026 the number of federated Blue Data Infrastructures (BDIs) will be expanded and efforts will be undertaken to make the machine-to-machine interactions between the DD&AS and each of the BDIs more streamlined and documented in order to increasing the FAIRness of the web services of each of the BDIs. In addition, it is planned to explore integrating a semantic brokerage, improving the content FAIRness.

    Type of result

    Links

    outboundhttps://blue-cloud.org/services/blue-cloud-data-discovery-and-access-serviceoutboundhttps://blue-cloud.org/data-infrastructures