Data Life Cycle Labs, A New Concept to Support Data-Intensive Science

Abstract: In many sciences the increasing amounts of data are reaching the limit of established data handling and processing. With four large research centers of the German Helmholtz association the Large Scale Data Management and Analysis (LSDMA) project supports an initial set of scientific projects, initiatives and instruments to organize and efficiently analyze the increasing amount of data produced in modern science. LSDMA bridges the gap between data production and data analysis using a novel approach by combining specific community support and generic, cross community development. In the Data Life Cycle Labs (DLCL) experts from the data domain work closely with scientific groups of selected research domains in joint R&D where community-specific data life cycles are iteratively optimized, data and meta-data formats are defined and standardized, simple access and use is established as well as data and scientific insights are preserved in long-term and open accessible archives.