STORET is designed such that the day-to-day operations of data management
occur at the local monitoring organizations. STORET is a desktop computing system, fully
interactive, with on-screen help, running on the Windows® 98/NT/2000/XP suite
of operating systems.
Client A
In the above diagram, the workstations shown clustered as "Client A"
represent a typical State installation of STORET. At the center of this
cluster is a State-owned database server, typically running the UNIX operating
system, on which the Oracle® Relational Database Management System (RDBMS)
is installed. Client A implements STORET by installing the STORET Database on this
server, in its skeletal form (i.e. empty of monitoring data) from the
EPA-supplied CD-ROM, and installing either the STORET Data Entry Module
software, the STORET Report Module software, or the STORET Interface Module (SIM)
software, or all three on each desktop computer which will use STORET. Once STORET
Software is installed as needed on the desktop computers,
and the database is installed on the Oracle® RDBMS engine,
State staff may begin to update this copy of STORET with the results of
their field work.
Note that no connection to EPA is required for day to day management
of STORET data. Once the State completes the STORET installation, they
operate STORET independently, controlling access to it and rules for its
use from within their organization. This autonomy from EPA is both the
largest change from historical STORET usage, and its most desirable feature,
in the eyes of many users.
From time to time the State may choose to export an image of their
entire STORET database to EPA, for inclusion in EPA's Data Warehouse.
While they can mark individual data values as preliminary (not for public
release) the bulk of their data then becomes available for the general
public to browse and/or download. Export to EPA is not mandatory, and
EPA places no requirements on frequency of export.
Client B
The workstations shown clustered as "Client B" represent an alternate
installation of STORET. The database server here is operating at a much
smaller scale, typically running the Windows NT® operation system. Once
again, the Oracle® RDBMS engine is present, and as with Client A, the
STORET database is installed on this server, and the STORET
software is installed on workstations as required. Some workstations are
portrayed as portable computers, with dial-up network access to the server.
If your network supports dial-up access, these users can use STORET from
any location.
Client C
STORET is small enough that it can be installed fully on either a portable
or a desktop PC which is NOT attached to a network server. This stand-alone
STORET installation requires the Personal Oracle® product, which must
be acquired separately. To implement this stand-alone STORET installation, the user installs
everything on the PC directly from the STORET CD-ROM, which contains a fully
automated installation and setup package. After installation of the STORET System, the
PC will contain a STORET database (yours now) and a full suite of software
for its update and reporting. The stand-alone STORET operator has all the functionality of the server-attached
STORET user, including the ability to export data to the EPA Data
Warehouse, where it will be made available to the general public.
The Public
STORET data in the EPA Data Warehouse may be browsed or downloaded by
anyone using a web browser such as Netscape® or Microsoft IE® (Internet
Explorer). No user registration is required for this type of access, and
with the exception of data marked by its owner as "preliminary", all data
in STORET will be freely available to the public.
STORET Database Architecture