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 challenging computing problems. The problems arise from the fact that many different machines over a heterogeneous network are going to access the reconstructed data that the BNL computing facilities will hold. These problems can be solved by the use of database and grid technology.
Objectivity is a database that allows data to be stored as objects.
Object storage of data is useful for research because it offers encapsulation of 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 transferred to a user's location efficiently using grid technology.