Our goal is to make access by scientific collaborators to BNL data as straightforward as possible. This will enhance the productivity of scientists and allow them to make new discoveries in a timely manner. Brookhaven's involvement as a tier 1 facility for the Atlas experiments and as the location of RHIC leads to some interesting computing problems that need to be solved. These problems arise from the fact that many different machines over a heterogeneous network are going to have to access the reconstructed data that BNL computing facilities will hold. These problems can be solved by the use of database and grid technology.
Objectivity is a database that allows for storage of data stored as objects.
This is useful for research because it is a nice way of encapsulating related data. Groups of objects are further encapsulated in database objects. The databases all reside under a federation. Our work includes developing software to maintain a replica catalog to allow users to find where databases are located on the grid. Once found, the database can be efficiently transfered to a user's location using grid technology.