CDC WONDER - A COOPERATIVE PROCESSING ARCHITECTURE FOR PUBLIC-HEALTH

CDC WONDER is an information management architecture designed for publ ic health. It provides access to information and communications withou t the user's needing to know the location of data or communication pat hways and mechanisms. CDC WONDER users have access to extractions from some 40 databases; electronic mail (e-mail); and surveillance data pr ocessing. System components include the Remote Client, the Communicati ons Server, the Queue Managers, and Data Servers and Process Servers. The Remote Client software resides in the user's machine; other compon ents are at the Centers far Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Remote Client, the Communications Server, and the Applications Server provide access to the information and functions in the Data Servers an d Process Servers. The system architecture is based on cooperative pro cessing, and components are coupled via pure message passing, using se veral protocols. This architecture allows flexibility in the choice of hardware and software. One system limitation is that final results fr om some subsystems are obtained slowly. Although designed for public h ealth, CDC WONDER could be useful for other disciplines that need flex ible, integrated information exchange.