The responsibilities of the D-SDA services team include representing and publicizing the German Satellite Data Archive (D-SDA), for example to GDI-DE, INSPIRE and GEO; arranging data ingestion for long-term archiving and geodata access; routine provision of services related to data archiving, cataloging and access. The D-SDA services team integrates the two functions EOC Librarian and Systems Operation for the Data Information Management System (DIMS).
The EOC Librarian component is the central contact point for the German Satellite Data Archive. It is the interface to internal and external specialist groups and facilitates increased use of the earth observation data archived at EOC. It undertakes to match the requirements of various user groups with the data available from EOC and to achieve user-friendly access to the archived earth observation data while observing data policy restrictions.
The information content and technical aspects of the public presentation of EOC’s earth observation data archive are also within the domain of the EOC Librarian function. This includes participation in national and international committees and in projects relating to data access, interoperability and long-term archiving.
The DIMS Systems Operation function manages the technical infrastructure of the Satellite Data Archive, which also operates as a key component of numerous remote sensing missions. The relevant tasks are long-term archiving of earth observation data including cataloging, data access with an Internet order option for various user groups, handling orders for existing and forthcoming data, monitoring product generation processing chains, archiving, and data delivery to users.
The challenge at the systems level is to regularly expand and adapt configurations and functions for new missions and projects, which involves incorporating new data sets and operationalizing new processing systems, while at the same time guaranteeing high availability of services by monitoring and controlling the central DIMS components.
Technically, the German Satellite Data Archive systems are based on the Data Information Management System DIMS. DIMS is a distributed IT infrastructure at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen and Neustrelitz with links to numerous institutes and external project partners. The multimission service currently (2011) handles some 500 terabytes of data from 15 missions in Oberpfaffenhofen alone. The missions supported include: