The importance of tracking the provenance of electronic data becomes apparent when data set providers need to also provide metadata describing where the data came from. This need has driven the development of a practical oceanographic data provenance system at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. MBARI’s Shore Side Data System is designed to manage data collected, processed, and archived from oceanographic observatories. We describe the provenance tracking aspects of this system and the lessons learned from its implementation in an operational environment.