Data and computation are fundamental to advances in geoscience research and discovery. However, geoscientists currently spend too much time looking for the “right” data, subsequently accessing these data, and then transforming them into a form suitable for analysis. This data management overhead affects a scientists' competitive advantage in making useful contributions. Several cyber-infrastructure (CI) efforts are being undertaken to improve the data management needs of the long-tail geoscientists. In this paper, we highlight characteristics of CI solutions that will form the basis for the successful and widely adopted solutions.