Processing Services in Earth Observation Sensor Web Information Architectures

Abstract-Processing of earth observation data occur at multiple points across the sensor observation-to-knowledge information flow, including on-board sensor processing, data re-formatting processing, and data analysis processing. Conducting the data flow through web services allows components to be distributed and coupled to form an end-to-end processing chain of services consisting of contributions from diverse and distributed service providers. Each type of processing service can be handled differently in processing service chains. In coupling data processing with data access, an objective is to minimize the amount of data being transferred from the data server. Data analysis services can involve data from multiple servers, where the data access to each server is coupled in a service workflow chain. In this paper, we examine the development and implementation of standards-based web processing services within service oriented architectures. In particular, we evaluate the Open Geospatial Consortium Web Processing Service (WPS) Standard, web service workflows, and non-web service approaches to coupling processing components for wildfire and smoke data access, analysis and forecast modeling. 1