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1. Accessibility
   • on the net
     Except where explicitely noted, all data base information should be accessible to any collaborator that has access to the Internet, regardless of geographical location.

   • security
     Most information needs to be safe from tampering. Therefore, all data bases need to have adequate mechanisms to prevent unauthorized modification or entry of data.

   • affordable access
     A tradeoff between convenience (all-commercial products, no programming for Phenix) and price (we write everything ourselves) is inevitable. It is feasible for Phenix to spend a fairly large sum on data base software at a 'central site' [SHALL WE SET A LIMIT ?? ], but the ability of many collaborating institutions to spend money on commercial software at the local computing facilities is limited. Therefore the implementation of the data base solutions should cost no more than the amount that one would spend on a compiler.

   • partial access
     The database system should support replication of the whole or parts of a database on a single machine or across a LAN/WAN and also on standalone machines (laptops) to improve read performance and data availability. This replication mechanism including coherency administration issues should be part of the DB system rather than be the responsibility of the application.

   • ease of access
     There should be a suite of tools that make it easy to insert data into the data bases, and (re-)organize them. There is a lot of information out there already in the form of Foxpro data bases, large collections of pictures, graphs and ascii files that need to be transferred into a central place. If access is too cumbersome, this will not be done and the data will eventually be lost.
     What is termed 'easy' depends somewhat on the data category. For documentation, we have a wide range of people with differing abilities that need the access. Document access therefore needs to be especially user-friendly. For other data types, such as engineering drawings, or calibrations, the audience is much narrower. In any case, ease of access must be such that no user is tempted to avoid using the data base.

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