The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) jointly intend to build a Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS). This paper addresses the required data flow infrastructure. <br><br> SOOS will use a system of systems approach, using existing observation programmes and projects. Data should be submitted to professional data centres. The problem arises how to link all these data centres and get a central overview of the SOOS data as well as direct access to the data. <br><br> The Netherlands National Oceanographic Data Committee (NL-NODC) has successfully built a national distributed oceanographic data acccess infrastructure, adopting and implementing technology developed by the European SeaDataNet project. <br><br> The Dutch system has been operational since early 2009. <br><br> The conclusion is that the SeaDataNet technology can be used to build an operational, distributed data delivery infrastructure, featuring all elements required by the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS).