You can use the MDB for interactive searches, from an interface that uses a java applet to see the strucutures in real time, to quick searches by PDB ID, to more complex searches and even SQL queries. You can do analysis like Metal-Ligand distance distributions interactively in about 2-3 seconds. Something that used to take ad-hoc analysis, and was the subject of full papers. More complex analysis tools are coming via the MSE: MSIT, Torsion angle distributions, ClusterGeom, etc. MDB shares data using a standarized file formats (e.g. RSS, CML) and well known web services protocols (REST, XML-RPC, SOAP) _Use the MDB_, _Use the MDB_, _Use the MDB_ ...