Large systems biology projects can encompass several workgroups often located
in different countries. An overview about existing data standards in systems
biology and the management, storage, exchange and integration of the generated
data in large distributed research projects is given, the pros and cons of the
different approaches are illustrated from a practical point of view, the
existing software - open source as well as commercial - and the relevant
literature is extensively overview, so that the reader should be enabled to
decide which data management approach is the best suited for his special needs.
An emphasis is laid on the use of workflow systems and of TAB-based formats.
The data in this format can be viewed and edited easily using spreadsheet
programs which are familiar to the working experimental biologists. The use of
workflows for the standardized access to data in either own or publicly
available databanks and the standardization of operation procedures is
presented. The use of ontologies and semantic web technologies for data
management will be discussed in a further paper.