Data Infrastructure Building Blocks

Data Infrastructure Building Blocks (DIBBs) is a U.S. National Science Foundation program.

On April 27, 2012, the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure announced a request for proposals with the name "Data Infrastructure Building Blocks (DIBBs)". The solicitation (NSF 12-557) "incorporated some but not all of the goals of the former DataNet and InterOp programs."

DIBBs is part of NSF's vision for a Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science (CIF21). The introduction in this solicitation states:

The [DIBBs] Program Description describes the goals of the program as such:

The solicitation divided the DIBBs awards into three areas: Conceptualization, Implementation, and Interoperability. These three tracks were distinguished as follows:

The anticipated funding amount for this solicitation was listed at $41,500,000 pending availability of funds. The anticipated average award size for conceptualization awards was $100,000 for one year; for implementation awards was approximately $8 million total over 5 years; and for interoperability awards was estimated to be up to $1.5 million total over 3 years.

Awards were given in two rounds. In the first round which dealt only with the Conceptualization track, for which full proposals were due on July 26, 2012, three DIBBs proposals were awarded:

• Conceptualization of the Social and Innovation Opportunities of Data Analysis, led by Michael Zentner at Purdue University
• Building International Data Sharing Capacity in Lake Sciences, with Implications for the Broader Environmental Science Community, led by Corinna Gries of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Designing the Roadmap for Social Network Data Management, led by Thomas Carsey of the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

The second round of awards covered the Implementation and Interoperability Tracks for which full proposals were due on August 30, 2012. Four more proposals were awarded:

• Long Term Access to Large Scientific Data Sets: The SkyServer and Beyond, led by Alexander Szalay of Johns Hopkins University
• The Data Exacell, led by Michael Levine of Carnegie-Mellon University
• Integrating Geospatial Capabilities into HUBzero, led by Xiaohui Carol Song of Purdue University
• Brown Dog, led by Kenton McHenry of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

A total of about $26.8M was distributed among these seven awards.