Big Federal Data Centers Implementing FAIR Data Principles: ARM Data Center Example

Abstract

Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) is a multi-laboratory/multi-institutional, US Department of Energy Office of Science National User Facility. ARM’s data is currently hosted at the ARM Data Center (ADC) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The ADC holds more than 12,000 data products, with a total holding of more than 1.8 PB of data that dates back to 1992. This includes data from instruments, value-added products, model outputs, field campaigns, and principle investigator contributed data. In this paper, we discuss how big federal scientific data centers, such as ARM, that use modern and scalable architecture apply findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data principles to improve overall efficiency. These principles mainly emphasize machine-to-machine interactions that are directly applicable to ARM because of its data volume.