An experimental Mosaic interface to scientific information systems

The NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) information system, EOSDIS, is a key component for disseminating EOS instrument data. Within EOSDIS the Information Management System (IMS) provides access to products maintained at data archives distributed throughout the country. At the heart of the IMS graphical user interface is the widely accepted X11 display protocol. An important feature of X11 that has facilitated IMS prototyping is that it allows users to separate the host computer on which an application program runs from the host where the output is displayed. Running remote X11 applications in this manner is appealing to organizations that for one reason or another do not want to distribute and support software packages or release the source code for their applications. The drawback is the X11 network message traffic generated when an application is run remotely. The authors´ work investigates the feasibility of eliminating X11 network traffic by using HTML+ and Mosaic to configure interfaces to information systems such as the NASA IMS. This approach offers advantages to both the information supplier and consumer. To the information consumer the system provides a single X11 software package which can communicate with any World Wide Web (WWW) information supplier. For the information supplier the approach will eliminate the need for X11 programming.