Design and overview of the data processing

The unprecedented observing capabilities of Gaia make it a unique instrument with an impressive impact on most of the research fields of astrophysics. Both the huge amount of data and the precision imposed by the scientific goals make the data storage and data reduction a critical issue of the mission. As such, the Gaia data access and analysis system has been object of study since the first steps of the mission. In the present paper we give an overview of the task performed until now in this area, leading to a first prototype of the Gaia Database and Data Reduction system on which the most critical algorithms have been implemented and tested. An update of the system including more realistic details and more complex algorithms that is now being implemented is also described. Some insights on the future plans will complete this paper.