Endless amounts of data are available nowadays. But how can you process, analyse and (re)use them safely and securely? The projects in this Labs theme explore these aspects.
C-SCALE
Earth observation research is important for predicting climate change. In order to process the large amount of available data, high-quality IT services are required. In the C-SCALE project, we make infrastructure services easily available to researchers and help them to use these services properly.
Why are we working on this project?
Analysing large amounts of data
Wind, sun, water and the atmosphere have a major impact on our daily lives and on the liveability of the Earth. Earth observation research is therefore important and enables us to measure and predict the influence of changes in the climate (e.g. rising sea levels). To do this research as accurately as possible, many measurements need to be combined. High-quality IT infrastructures are needed to analyse these enormous quantities of data.
Making services and data easily available
The aim of the C-SCALE project (Copernicus - eoSC AnaLytics Engine) is to make European infrastructure services and earth observation data from Copernicus (the European space programme for earth observation) federated, free and easily accessible. This way, researchers can log in to all those services with one account and can easily analyse the data. Where possible, C-SCALE also offers earth observation data from sources other than Copernicus. Ask SURF about the possibilities, via servicedesk.surfsara.nl.
European Open Science Cloud
The federated environment we develop in this project is part of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), an infrastructure that supports European research, including Earth observation, with large and easily accessible European computing and data environments.
What are the main activities?
- SURF leads task 3.2 (HTC/HPC access integration) in WP3 (C-SCALE computer federation). In this task, SURF provides access to high-performance computer systems in Europe for earth observation researchers via SURF Research Access Management.
- SURF unlocks its high performance data processing infrastructure in the C-SCALE federation.
- We support earth observation use cases in C-SCALE: SURF supports researchers in obtaining the necessary earth observation data and in using high-performance computer systems.
- We assist Dutch researchers in applying for access to C-SCALE data and compute infrastructure. You can apply until 31 January 2022. Successful proposals receive free access.
Watch this video in which programme manager Raymond Oonk explains the purpose of the C-SCALE project.
Who are we collaborating with?
We collaborate with Deltares and WUR on the earth observation use cases, and we also collaborate with the following partners in the field of HTC/HPC: GRNET, INFN, EODC, TUW, EGI.
Seminar Enabling Copernicus Big Data Analytics through European Open Science Cloud
On 27 October 2021 we looked at how researchers in the field of earth observation gain access to the available data and computing facilities. During the online seminar several speakers explained what C-SCALE does and how Dutch research groups can participate. Watch the video's of the speaker's presentations.