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available freely for years, although it’s only now being harnessed for data corralling within the lab informatics field,’ Schaefer noted. ‘The Open Packaging Convention, or OPC, originated from Microsoft, and is, effectively, a sip file technology that has now been documented in ISO/IEC 29500 and ECMA 376 standards.’ Look it up on Microsoft website and Open Packaging Conventions (OPC) is described as a file technology for designing file formats with a shared, base architecture. ‘The OPC integrates elements of sip, XML and the Web technologies into an open, industry standard that makes it easier to organise, store and transport application data,’ the website says. Think of OPC as a kind of filing cabinet, but not the individually arranged drawers of a personal filing system. OPC container packages must conform to a predictable, conceptual organisational system – called the logical model – and predictable physical characteristics, called the physical model. It’s these standardised conformance requirements that are described in the OPC. OPC makes it possible to parcel up all
of your proprietary and standard data and associated files. ‘OPC effectively provides a convention for how you prepare a sip file, so that it contains all of the data, including metadata, appropriately prepared and parcelled up,’ Schaefer said. ‘It’s kind of a revelation for anyone working with proprietary and standardised data, because it allows users to keep all of their data, standard, original, metadata and workflows, in these discrete, also standardised ‘containers’. ‘At its most basic level, the idea is you
take your instrument data and place it in the sip file. You add to that XML metadata, and then you add your open data formats, such as AnIML, to the same file. You can then keep all of your data together in a very accessible format that keeps the link between the open standard and the proprietary data. People can then dip into and out of one data format or another.’ Importantly, OPC hasn’t necessitated a major reinvention of the wheel. ‘sip files can be read on just about any computer, and we’ve all been using them every day for decades. Microsoft is even using this format as the base for their DOCX or PPTX Office file formats. One of the great things about OPC is that because Microsoft supports it, there are libraries for pretty much any platform. So it’s very accessible and fits into that spirit of open accessibility and FAIR data.’ Data standards pioneer BSSN Software has been working with customers to create an implementation for OPC, which
16 Scientific Computing World February/March 2020
is an ideal fit with the company’s data converters, which are now available for upwards of 200 instrument models. ‘Using OPC companies can archive all data into OPC sip containers that will, we can assume, still be readable in the next 20 years. This can only help to lower the hurdle for adopting standards, as it follows that ‘embrace, not replace’ mentality.’ BSSN is a leader in developing data management and integration software that facilitates the seamless interoperability communication and flow of data from informatics systems, scientific and instrument software. The firm has championed the XML-based AnIML
“Everything has public visibility, you can see the complete process of development and decision making”
standard for data reporting, storage and sharing, and Schaefer is also on the board of directors of SiLA, a non-profit consortium that is developing standards for defining how information is transported and communicated from one laboratory system to another – effectively how systems talk to one another – rather than how the data they generate is structured. OPC fits in with the concept of data standards being developed and adopted
as non-competitive, community initiatives for the benefit of scientific discovery and development. ‘And importantly, OPC doesn’t tread on the toes of either AnIML, which is representing the data, or SiLA, which is developing the communications standards,’ Schaefer noted. ‘Our vision is to make standards accessible and understood by every scientist, and without forcing them to abandon their existing data formats.’ OPC helps to do this. The vision to give every lab an
understanding of and access to open standards is one shared by Merck, which acquired BSSN in June. Through the merger, Merck says it will combine BSSN’s technologies with its own market access and laboratory domain knowledge to develop and commercialise an open and interoperable platform for laboratory data. ‘With the power and market reach
of Merck, we can achieve this vision of developing an ecosystem of standards that all play together, and which can be accessed globally, by labs and organisations of any scale,’ Schaefer stated. ‘Merck is neither a major analytical instrument vendor nor a traditional software developer, so we can exploit their global reach on a more impartial basis, non-competitively, to evolve this open system, building on AnIML and on the concept of community-driven standardisation protocols.’ What’s also becoming clear is that these open standards are not static, but, as
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