CCRS in Ottawa: Big Geospatial Data Analytics Workshop

Almost a year ago a needs & requirement assessment was conducted to gather information on the potential development of a big geospatial data environment, tentatively called the GEODE (Geoanalytics Earth Observation Data Environment).

We held a session at the most recent Canadian Symposium on Remote Sensing on the GEODE concept and indicated that we were looking to engage more with partners outside of government on this activity. We indicated that one of the next steps would be to hold a workshop to discuss the system, needs & requirements, scoping, etc.

At the same time, we’ve just completed an RFI (request for information) process on potential offerings for a PPP (public-private-partnership) on a GEODE solution. The RFI was designed to be deliberately non-specific in terms of how vendors would provide a solution to address big geospatial data analytics and/or cube analytics. This was done primarily so our team could combine our initial understanding of needs & requirements and data cube solutions implemented elsewhere to the art-of-the-possible from the commercial sector. To this end that approach has been highly successful.

In the RFI/RFP process, the next stage for us is a follow-up RFI where we intend to be specific about what the data cube solution has to offer (though shalt provide XX petabytes, XX processing power, ingest routines for the following satellites, this type of licensing structure, this type of cost model, etc, etc).

So, our next step is to hold a Big Geospatial Data Analytics workshop to outline big geospatial data analytics, discuss needs & requirements, and then finish with outlining the requirements we need to include in the next stage of the RFI/RFP process. The contract for this workshop has just been awarded to Dirk Werle (AERDE) and the dates for this 2-day workshop are being defined but will be in mid-to-late January.

For further details on the workshop, please contact Darren Janzen at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing.

Darren Janzen
Section Head, Optical Methods and Applications
Chef de section, Méthodes et applications optiques
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing
Centre canadien de télédétection
Natural Resources Canada / Ressources naturelles Canada
Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada
560 Rochester Street, Ottawa , ON. K1A 0E4
email: darren.janzen@canada.ca