3. The SERIES Virtual Database: Architecture and Implementation

The European scientific community is currently highly fragmented, with each laboratory holding experimental data, stored in some cases in a non-structured way. As a consequence, dissemination and use of experimental results outside the laboratory where they are produced can be problematic. This leads to wasteful duplication of tests and ultimately limits the impact of earthquake engineering research on practice, innovation and earthquake risk mitigation. One part of the SERIES Networking Activities aims at facilitating the exchange of data and data communication among research infrastructures in Europe by providing access to data through a distributed database. The scope was not to build a central database where local databases would either migrate or merge, but instead to provide centralised access to database nodes that are distributed over a network and are able to dialog with a central portal in a uniform manner. To this end, database nodes use Web Services to cast their data into a uniform standard format. The paper concentrates on the architecture and the implementation of the Distributed Database.