Behind the Scenes at the DLR National Satellite Data Archive, a Brief History and Outlook of Long Term Data Preservation

Abstract

The Earth Observation Center (EOC) at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is the center of competence in Germany, providing expertise in earth observation research and development activities, as well as operational tasks for data reception, processing and archiving. We briefly present the German Satellite Data Archive (D-SDA) with systems and activities that make it possible to accomplish successful Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) over more than 20 years with nearly exponentially growing data capacity. Tables, facts and figures exhibit the path taken at DLR to successfully establish the infrastructure for long term data preservation for Germany and Europe. Our experience is that that LTDP is manageable but requires following the evolution in technology, new usage scenarios and data policies. DLR is working on the continuous evolution of the flexible DIMS components, infrastructure and management services to serve the processing and archiving centers for the next generation earth observation satellites.