ECS communications and systems management

The NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Core System (ECS) will be one of the largest distributed information systems ever constructed. Sheer scope is thus a major challenge-but certainly not the only challenge-in interconnecting and managing the ECS. The Communications and Systems Management Segment (CSMS) is the infrastructural "glue" that interconnects and manages the ECS. CSMS networks move over a terabyte of data-the equivalent of a Library of Congress-each day. CSMS manages Distributed Active Archive Centers spread literally from Alabama to Alaska, simultaneously providing on-site management and a system-wide view. CSMS will ultimately support tens of thousands of registered users-hundreds on-line at a time-while accommodating a broad spectrum of scientistand studentowned computing platforms. Network security is critical to the success of the entire Earth Observing System. CSMS connects both to users over the quasi-public Internet and to operational satellites over mission-critical NASA networks. CSMS security must therefore be powerful yet unobtrusive, reliably separating the hackerand virus-prone Internet from NASA networks without inconvenience to the scientific community. This paper presents some of the key operational concepts and technologies through which CSMS meets its varied goals. The focal points of the paper include (1) a standards-based approach to networks and systems management that evolves over the fifteen-year project lifetime, (2) a scaleable app~oach to distributed system management that grows with ECS, and (3) security in an open, standards-based network.