A Process Modeling Tool for Systems Analysis of NASA's Distributed Active Archives Centers

Ground stations receive data from satellites for processing and storage. The increasing amount of incoming satellite data and increases in the demand for the data are causing an excessive load on the system. Changes to the current data archiving architecture of ground stations may be necessary to continue providing data efficiently to users. A process model and simulation of the current system could reveal bottlenecks and constraints. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate whether process modeling is a useful method for analyzing data archiving systems within ground stations. This paper outlines the methods applied during the model development process and examines the overall effectiveness of process modeling in this capacity. The architecture of NASA's Goddard Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) was used as a basis for developing the process model, which demonstrates the value of such a method for analyzing data archiving systems. The value of this particular model would be improved with a formal empirical data collection for model validation