Orchestra: Facilitating Collaborative Data Sharing

One of the most elusive goals of structured data management has been sharing among large, heterogeneous populations: While data integration and exchange are gradually being adopted by corporations or small confederations, little progress has been made in integrating broader communities. Yet the need for large-scale sharing of heterogeneous data is increasing: most of the sciences, particularly biology and astronomy, have become data-driven as they have attempted to tackle larger questions.