Web media is pitiless: the slightest downtime will be picked up by an internet user, often before the incident has been detected by the servers. An online marine data distribution portal which is not permanently accessible will very soon be considered unreliable and will therefore rapidly face heavy criticism.

In addition to online services, the IDM unit also has to handle a wide variety of operational constraints (back office services), for instance:

• receiving data from an automated observatory as soon as it is deployed, which requires it to have been previously identified and appropriately described,
• handling information processing and production streams in series,
• delivering the results on time.

Finally, all the technical infrastructures supporting the entire system must be permanently supervised.