Data information and management system for the production, archiving and distribution of earth observation products

The Data Information and Management System (DIMS) is a new generation facility from DLR-DFD to handle earth observation products. DIMS is a multi-mission ground system and will be configured to support the tasks performed within the framework of the upcoming programs/missions such as the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS) or ENVISAT. DIMS is responsible for user information services (including on-line delivery), off-line delivery, post-processing, the product library, ordering control and production control. A cornerstone is the product library which is the source of processing input and the destination of processing output. It provides a complete and consistent reference to the configured products. Based on the product library, ordering control manages the business process ordering throughout the system. A unified operating tool provides interactive access to the above components. Interfaces to related systems like EPS ground segment, Unified Meteorological Archive and Retrieval Facility (UMARF) or ENVISAT Payload Data Segment (PDS) are foreseen to exchange products, catalogue and order information. The near real-time, as well as the off-line services, are provided by DIMS. The experience gained at DFD in managing large amounts of meteorological and earth observation data and a modern system design, using state-of-the-art technologies, resulted in the valuable features offered by DIMS: Multi-mission facility, supporting products from many sensors/satellites/missions in parallel User information services including guide, directory, inventory, browse and ordering Product library, including automatic robot archive and inventory with optimised spatial access methods Robot archive, with an extendable capacity of 300Tbyte Interfacing of local and remote processors Product delivery on media or via Internet Unified operating using Java/WWW-technology Support of distributed sites based on interoperability with CORBA The DIMS components follow a modular design based on an application server concept implemented in Java. Therefore, the software is platform independent and is foreseen for installation and configuration at other institutions.