Geoscience applications increasingly rely on the integration and collocation of data in the form of in-situ field observations with data in the form of satellite observations and global models. Both types of data reside in scattered repositories for both historical and economic (too large to replicate) reasons. Finding all possible data match-ups between distributed data repositories is a fundamental challenge for geoscience work such as satellite calibration and validation (Cal/Val).

The Distributed Oceanography Match-up Service (DOMS) is a joint collaborative venture between NASA/JPL, NCAR and FSU/COAPS to pool their collections of data. It includes surface observations from the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) at NCAR, the Shipboard Automated Meteorological and Oceanographic System Initiative (SAMOS) at FSU/COAPS, the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS) and satellite data from NASA/JPL.

DOMS supports human-initiated data requests and machine-to-machine queries. It is extensible and scalable; data and data repositories can be added. It facilitates two-way data discovery/match-ups; one can search for in-situ data in the satellite swath, or look for satellite data surrounding an in-situ observation point.

DOMS provides many lessons in how to build a generalized and extensible data match-up service using cloud services, a relational database, and existing data technologies.