The Road Towards Scalable Cloud-Based Data Access, Usability and Interoperability - a DAAC's tale

Large remote sensing missions archived by the EOSDIS (Earth Observing System Data and Information System) DAACs (Distributed Active Archive Center) are challenging the traditional download and access paradigm of the end user. While the core functionality of the DAACs (Ingest and Archive, cataloging, and data access) will always be available, ESDIS is also exploring new ways to enable science and the transformation of data into knowledge and information. The cloud offers a scalable and effective way to address storage, network, and data movement concerns while offering a tremendous amount of flexibility to the user. The new big data missions such as Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT), will push EOSDIS, and PO.DAAC (Physical Oceanography DAAC), into its next phase - co-located, multidisciplinary, cloud-based archive and distribution centers that enable analysis next to the data.

In this presentation we will highlight PO.DAAC's roadmap for cloud-based services that focus on access and ease of use (e.g. OpenAPI), data transformations that get the data closer to analysis-ready and ease egress, as well as providing GIS transformation, visualization and analysis services that would enable delivery of PO.DAAC data directly into GIS software tools for geospatial analysis. Some examples currently under development will be shown. We will also present examples of resources being developed to guide or support the end user in utilizing these services, and touch on PO.DAAC's vision for data interoperability, such as data lakes, that would include multi-source (multi-DAAC, and eventually multi-agency) data. https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/SWOT