Remote Sensing Analytics in Databases with ISO SQL/MDA

Database systems are essential components of modern services and applications. The remote sensing domain has predominantly been an exception to this trend so far, however, as common data types did not fit as well into the standard database model. Instead, various data management challenges have been addressed ad-hoc with custom proprietary / non-portable solutions. This is finally changing with the recent standardization of ISO SQL/MDA which extends SQL, the standard database query language, with support for data cube storage, management, and processing. This paper gives a high-level overview of SQL/MDA and how it can be used for building flexible, high-performance, and scalable remote sensing applications.