This document discusses engaging earth observation data in the platform economy. It outlines three challenges: making data open, building on existing platforms through APIs, and exploiting network effects. The author describes their MELODIES project which developed a platform as a service for earth observation data. This allows rapid prototyping, seamless data access, and automated processing. Ongoing work involves furthering these outcomes and forming partnerships to ensure sustainability. The goal is to support open science, government, and commercial applications using earth observation data.

1. Engaging Earth observation in
the Platform economy
Hervé Caumont
Melodies project final event
11th
-13th
October 2016, Brussels

2. Platform economy:
Value-creation is continuous
in a self-sustained ecosystem
of producers & consumers

3. Innovating with
open data

5. A critical need to solve
Help Open Science to address
environment-related societal issues,
globally
Part 1/3

6. Climate Change

7. Ocean ecosystem

8. GeoHazards monitoring

9. EO data is there

10. Example of
Sensor acquisitions
Density map

11. Example of
Sensor acquisitions
Density map

12. EO Data is there
as Open Data replicated to more and more Data Centers
Commercial platforms
• Google Cloud
Landsat & Sentinel-2 | already 1.7+ PB
• Amazon Cloud, Earth on AWS
Landsat & Sentinel-2 | already 1+ PB
• CloudFerro & CTI, EO Cloud
Envisat, Landsat, Sentinel-2 |already 1+ PB
• Cloudsigma
(upcoming!)
Institutional platforms
• Copernicus Core Services
Data & Products | an average of 10 PB per year!
• Copernicus SciHub
Rolling archive extended to 1 year | >2 PB
• National GS, e.g. CNES PEPS
Sentinel-1/2/3 | online capacity of 2 PB
• NextGEOSS: The European GEO Data Hub
(upcoming!)
And the lists are growing ...

13. EO data is there
but earth science applications...
• ...are still in their early stages.
• Only a few operational processes
transferred to the industry,
mostly within niche markets,
• mainly outside of the “Open
Web” and its potential to scale
them out globally.
• EO datasets remain very
technical products,
• with no Web-native process
matured enough, hampering the
innovations that would impact
societal challenges globally.

14. The Web as a Platform

15. The Internet can do more
“You can be reading a paper by someone and
then go off and look at their original data. You
can even redo their analysis. Or you can be
looking at some data and then go off and find
out all the literature about this data. Such a
capability will increase the ‘information
velocity’ of the sciences and will improve the
scientific productivity of researchers”
– Jim Gray, The 4th paradigm, 2009, Microsoft Research
Data-intensive science is the 4th
paradigm

17. Three challenges
with the exploitation of
Earth observation
Open Data
Part 2/3

18. 3 proverbs of Platform operations

19. If you can't beat 'em,
join 'em
APIs
Build innovation
without owning all
assets

20. If you can't beat 'em,
join 'em
APIs
Build innovation
without owning all
assets
When in Rome, do
as the Romans do
Network effects
Exploit the Web
at its full scale to
share resources

21. If you can't beat 'em,
join 'em
APIs
Build innovation
without owning all
assets
When in Rome, do
as the Romans do
Network effects
Exploit the Web
at its full scale to
share resources
No man is an island
Platform
economy
Seek partnerships
that challenge
your idea

22. If you can't beat 'em,
join 'em
APIs
Build innovation
without owning all
assets
When in Rome, do
as the Romans do
Network effects
Exploit the Web
at its full scale to
share resources
No man is an island
Platform
economy
Seek partnerships
that challenge
your idea
open data for open science

23. • Producer Decks on
hybrid cloud
• Consume Services
• Deploy Cloud Appliances
on public clouds
• Elasticsearch
• Catalog Std interface
• Data gateway
• S3 data nodes
•Use Community Hubs on
private cloud
•Consume workflows
•Build OneFlow services
• Use Hadoop Sandboxes on
private cloud
• Consume templates
• Design Scalable
Workflows
Developers Integrators
Producers
Data
Providers
servicescode
appliancesopen data
Platform
as a Service

24. Our scorewriting
with Melodies

25. my RPMs !
Linked Open Data Apps
Virtual Machines for developers

26. Cloud deployments ready to scale

27. Cloud storage self-service

28. Improved Data Agency & catalog
Discovery and Access
Publication
Nearest Download
Caching

29. Platform economy
new types of
partnerships based
on openness
Part 3/3

30. Concept of Operation ESA BiDS 2014 Conference
http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12728

31. Climate Change
Carbon market
Climatology
Oceanography
Ship logistics
Land management
Water quality
Desertification
Biodiversity
Urban accounting
Volcanology
Seismic analysis
Disaster Risk Reduction
5
EC FP7 GEOWOW
(2011-2013)
EC FP7 SenSyF
(2013-2015)
EC FP7 MELODIES
(2014-2016)
ESA Exploitation Platforms
(2014 onwards)
8
14
↗
35+
H2020 projects
(2015-2018)
33+
Campaigns
(2013 onwards)
Hosted communities

32. • Open data
strategies
• Collaborations
with specialists
• Innovation
bootstrap
• Technology
synergies
• New data
products
sharing
Sustainability

33. Sustainability
Early bird from April 2016
Online offer & Subscription plans
Single
Sign-On
Solutions Portfolio & Community management
https://www.terradue.com
Update end October 2016

34. What we’ve learnt
• Open Data benefits cannot take up without early adopter
services, growing the platform with us
• We need to better communicate on the available Cloud
services: PaaS, DaaS, SaaS are supporting the
Information-as-a-Service end game
• It’s time to spread the word on business models for
platform operations : Open Science, e-Gov, commercial, …

35. We are aiming at
• Rapid prototyping and benchmarking of algorithms
• Seamless data access whatever stage of the process
• Automated data processing for non expert users

36. Platform
as a Service
Engaging earth observations in the Platform Economy ...
… furthering the MELODIES experience and outcomes

37. Ongoing Platform partnerships
some examples

38. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciapak/
Data Partnerships
in the Platform economy

39. Thank you !
https://www.terradue.com

40. References
Free Data Proves Its Worth for Observing Earth:
https://www2.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/free-data-proves-its-worth-for-observing-earth/
Benefits of Open Availability of Landsat Data:
http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/pres/stsc2012/2012ind-05E.pdf
Living Planet Symposium 2013 - Copernicus Space Component Ground Segment and Operations:
https://sentinel.esa.int/documents/247904/690755/Operations-Concept-Data-Access.pdf
ESA BiDS 2014 - Big earth sciences and the new Platform economy:
http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12728