Reference Model Guided Engineering

Environmental research infrastructures (RIs) support their respective re-search communities by integrating large-scale sensor/observation networks with data curation and management services, analytical tools and common operational policies. These RIs are developed as service pillars for intra- and interdisciplinary research; however, comprehension of the complex, interconnected aspects of the Earth’s ecosystem increasingly requires that re-searchers conduct their experiments across infrastructure boundaries. Con-sequently, almost all data-related activities within these infrastructures, from data capture to data usage, need to be designed to be broadly interoperable in order to enable real interdisciplinary innovation and to improve service offerings through the development of common services. To address these interoperability challenges as they relate to the design, implementation and operation of environmental RIs, a Reference Model guided engineering approach was proposed and has been used in the context of the ENVRI cluster of RIs. In this chapter, we will discuss how the approach combines the ENVRI Reference Model with the practices of Agile systems development to design common data management services and to tackle the dynamic requirements of research infrastructures.