Integrating Scientific Software's CyberLAB Knowledge Engineering system with Agilent's networked data systems. Application Note

Transcription

1 Integrating Scientific Software's CyberLAB Knowledge Engineering system with Agilent's networked data systems Application Note Kathleen O'Dea Ute Bober Abstract Laboratories today are constantly faced with the challenge of improving productivity in the drug discovery, development and manufacturing processes while at the same time ensuring compliance with regulatory guidelines such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's ruling on electronics signatures and electronics records (21 CFR Part 11). Tools that manage all types of information across an enterprise and build an entire electronic library for informed decision making are not available from single sources so that labs look to alliance partnerships who provide integration of their individual systems. This Application Note describes the integration of Scientific Software's CyberLAB knowledge engineering system with Agilent's ChemStation Plus and Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC networked data systems.

2 Introduction Scientific Software, Inc. (SSI) and Agilent Technologies have developed an integration strategy for SSI s CyberLAB Knowledge Engineering System and the Agilent data systems ChemStation Plus, optionally with the Security Pack module, and Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC. This integration strategy leverages the strengths of both companies' products, providing a comprehensive approach to managing the laboratory environment from instrument control and data generation, through data retrieval and archive. Designed to suit the needs of analytical laboratories in the life sciences, together these products provide a pathway to compliance with regulations such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's ruling on electronics signatures and electronics records (21 CFR Part 11). The Agilent ChemStation Plus family provides modular software components for instrument control, data acquisition, centralized data management as well as support of 21 CFR Part 11 (Security Pack), giving laboratories the flexibility to choose a system that meets both their present and future requirements. Agilent Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC is designed specifically to meet the workflow, compliance and IT requirements of QA/QC labs in the pharmaceutical industry. It provides centralized management of chromatography data for labs with a few to a few hundred instruments and a large number of users. It also helps labs reduce operating and validation costs by adapting to the lab s workflow and by assuring compliance to FDA regulations such as 21 CFR Part 11 and quality standards. CyberLAB is SSI s Web-based knowledge engineering system, which safely catalogs, warehouses, indexes, stores, archives and shares not only the analytical data generated by the Agilent data systems, but all types of information across an enterprise, building an entire electronic library for informed decision making. As a Web-based application, CyberLAB makes information immediately available to those who need it, whether within the laboratory, across the site or around the globe. Built from the ground up with regulations and quality standards in mind, CyberLAB offers a full suite of features designed to assist in compliance with 21 CFR Part 11. Managing archives and reports from Agilent data systems Data Archival One of today's greatest challenges is to manage efficiently the ever increasing amount of data generated in analytical laboratories, originating from a multitude of data sources. Agilent data systems specifically address compliance needs in analytical laboratories and provide for instrument control and data acquisition, result calculations and reporting, and central storage of raw and meta data, while at the same time ensuring that data security, integrity and full traceability are safeguarded. When facing the need for long-term storage of archived laboratory data while maintaining full data integrity, the demand arises for an enhanced archive management solution beyond the scope of a chromatography data system. Hence the data system of choice must be closely linked to a knowledge engineering/archive management system, and seamlessly integrate within the overall IT environment of the laboratory or enterprise. This is most readily achieved when both products rely on established technology that has become de facto industry standard, such as data management based on Oracle relational databases or easy data exchange using the extensible markup language (XML) format. SSI's CyberLAB has become a significant part of many companies' overall compliance solution and complements the offering by extending compliance beyond the chromatography data system. CyberLAB provides a fully automated backup, archiving and cataloging system for all software-based instruments. SSI and Agilent have worked together to develop a generic interface that will allow users to exchange virtually any data between the applications, enabling CyberLAB to provide secure storage, fast querying and easy retrieval of archived data from Agilent data systems. For more detailed review, the archive is restored on the data system where it originated. Both ChemStation Plus (client-server configurations) and Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC produce archive units at user-defined intervals from their respective databases along with an XML-based archive catalog. CyberLAB is capable of reading 2

3 and understanding the format and content of the Agilent developed catalog, ensuring seamless data flow between the products. The client-server version of ChemStation Plus provides for manual as well as automatic archiving to separate files of runs present in the database. Manual archiving is done from the Archive/Delete view in the ChemStore C/S review client and is based on the selected data set. Automatic archiving is based conveniently on user-defined custom queries set up by an archive administrator, which are executed independently at predefined time intervals according to users' needs (defined per query). Multiple archive queries can be executed automatically, each generating a separate archive file. The location where the archive unit will be placed is defined in the archive query setup for each custom query (see Figure 1). Figure 1 Setup of automatic archive queries The time interval for archival is configurable, for example, daily, weekly, monthly or in conjunction with a counter such as every x days. Each custom query is put together from a set of criteria, including for example, injection time, sample name, instrument name, operator name, approval status and so on. The available operands depend on the data category (text, numeric values, date) including wildcards and relative values (for example, runs older than x days). A test function allows the user to obtain information on the number of runs that the query returns at the moment with the given query condition. 3

4 The archive catalog file in XML format is generated with each archive unit, and contains detailed information about the content of the binary archive file. Agilent's generic archive interface provides a closer linkage to CyberLAB for enhanced data mining and archive management. It allows seamless integration of a plug-in that automatically notifies CyberLAB when an archive unit is created. Figure 2 shows a schematic overview of the data flow between the data system, the XML-based archive interface and CyberLAB. CyberLAB can move the archive units to any of CyberLAB s supported storage devices while indexing the archive catalog and making the information it contains available for searching. The storage device options for CyberLAB include EMC s NAS, SAN, and Centera CAS devices, and Tivoli Storage Manager supported devices (includes tape drives, libraries, and optical disks). CyberLAB s archive also supports a variety of manual devices including CD/DVD Jukeboxes, ZIP or JAZ drives. In turn it can transmit the location of the successfully transferred archive unit back to the Agilent data system (currently ChemStation Plus only). Managing Reports Any report generated by an Agilent data system can be transferred to CyberLAB using the CyberPrinter XP print management system and indexed for full-text or keyword search. Client computers can be configured easily with a CyberPrinter XP. This print management system allows users Review Client ¹ Scheduled Archiving Generic Archive Interface CyberLAB Plug-In Archive Unit +XML Catalog XML Catalog Data Extraction Agilent NDS Oracle Database CyberLAB Online File Storage CyberLAB Database Archive Unit +XML Catalog Offline Archival (e.g. on Tape, CD, DVD) Online Archival (SAN, e.g. EMC Centera, Tivoli) De-archiving Figure 2 Generic XML-based archive interface 4

5 to create electronic documents, through popular standard print drivers such as Adobe Distiller, using any Windows application s Print function and transfer them to CyberLAB. As an example, Figure 3 shows the report template editor of Agilent Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC the report template editor is a precursor to generating an HTML-format report for transfer to CyberLAB. Figure 4 shows the Web-based interface of CyberLAB and how reports originating from an Agilent data system are easily accessible through the standard data hierarchy of location, cabinet, drawer, and folder in CyberLAB. The CyberPrinter XP can manage electronic files generated by print drivers in virtually any format, including portable document format (PDF) files. Users have the option of printing a hardcopy of the document and ing it in addition to the electronic file placed in CyberLAB. Figure 3 Report template editor of Agilent Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC Figure 4 Web-based interface of CyberLAB, showing how analytical reports fit in the data hierarchy 5

6 Enhanced searching options for Agilent archive data With CyberLAB s enhanced indexing support for archives originating from ChemStation Plus and Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC databases, users can select any information from the archive catalog to be extracted and stored as key information for the archive unit. CyberLAB s search functions can quickly search through these key words to find the records needed. Available information includes: acquisition information (injection date, operator, instrument, and so on) acquisition details (sequence or project name, method name) results (including custom fields) sample name and information approval history (approval status and date of approval) LIMS ID result data, and more With a familiar Web-style search, the user simply enters a word or words of interest to find files containing those words. The search results can be sorted by a variety of criteria selectable as file list column headers. For a more focused search, CyberLAB s Advanced Query Builder is available. With this tool users can mine data that meets very specific search criteria. Figure 5 shows an example of an advanced search, in which the query finds all files with the word amine present in the file description, and either a Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC data archived date between October 21, Figure 5 Example of an advanced search using CyberLAB's Advanced Query Builder Figure 6 Results of the advanced search using the criteria shown in Figure and January 31, 2003 or data of any type where the user defined key Project has been associated with a value of GTS Figure 6 shows the results of the advanced search. 6

7 Conclusion The integration of SSI's CyberLAB with Agilent's data system, ChemStation Plus and Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC, helps enterprises to manage more efficiently the long-term storage of data and make more informed decisions by providing: laboratory or enterprise-wide automated data backup and archiving strategy for Agilent data systems secure, short-term storage of this data long-term archiving on safe stable media such as CD/DVD jukeboxes, ZIP or JAZ drives a flexible archiving solution that combines the powers of the two applications and that allows users to define the archive schedule, device and media type reports and archives from Agilent data systems, which remain searchable for months, years and decades database catalog of archived data for quick lookup and restore user-defined, context-sensitive (key-based) and powerful full-text search capabilities enhanced compliance with 21 CFR Part 11 requirements for the enterprise over the entire data retention time SSI's CyberLAB application and Agilent data systems is a powerful combination that provides a comprehensive compliance solution for users of Agilent equipment. 7

8 For more information Specifications Agilent ChemStation Plus, Agilent publication number EN Links Further information about Scientific Software, Inc. and CyberLAB can be found on the Web at Specifications Agilent Cerity for Pharmaceutical QA/QC, Agilent publication number EN. Primer Good laboratory practice and current good manufacturing practice. Agilent publication number EN CD-ROM For Better Net Results: Networked Data Systems to meet the Pharmaceutical Challenge, Agilent publication number EN White Paper CyberLAB System Overview, SSI publication number M White Paper CyberLAB Technical Overview, SSI publication number M Kathleen O'Dea is Product Manager at Scientific Software Inc., Pleasanton, CA, USA and Ute Bober is Product Manager for Data Systems at Agilent Technologies GmbH, Waldbronn, Germany. The information in this publication is subject to change without notice. Copyright 2003 Agilent Technologies All Rights Reserved. Reproduction, adaptation or translation without prior written permission is prohibited, except as allowed under the copyright laws. Published October 1, 2003 Publication Number EN