Evolution of the Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System (EOSDIS)

The earth observing system (EOS) data and information system (EOSDIS) has been serving a broad user community since 1994. Most of NASA's Earth science data are currently being archived, managed and distributed by EOSDIS. Also, EOSDIS commands and controls EOS spacecraft and instruments, captures data from the instruments and processes them into a set of standard products. As of March 2006, the archives of EOSDIS held over 4.3 petabytes of data from over 90 instruments and over 2000 distinct science products. The distribution of data to end users amounts to approximately 2 TB a day. The community receiving data from EOSDIS is on the order of 200,000 distinct users from a diverse set of organizations and scientific disciplines. While EOSDIS is effectively managing a large amount of data and successfully serving a broad user community, it is a system whose design and development originated more than 10 years ago during which many advances have occurred in information technology. Although there has been an on-going process of technology infusion, incremental improvements in processing and performance, and new functionality added in areas of user access, distribution, and archive management over the years, the underlying design has remained essentially the same. During this time frame, data volumes have grown dramatically and the science community has gained considerable experience in processing and analyzing their data. More recently, through examination of current operations and a series of lessons learned, there has been a desire to re-examine current operations for significant improvements in a variety of areas. The overall objectives of the EOSDIS evolution are to: increase end-to-end data system efficiency and autonomy while decreasing operations costs, increase data interoperability and usability by the science research, application, and modeling communities, improve data access and processing, and ensure safe stewardship.