1. Project overview
The project involved delivering a system for accessing, processing, archiving, and distributing data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3, and Sentinel-5P satellites. This system is designed to provide recordings of areas affected by disasters or crisis situations across the country.
By implementing this project, the time required to access spatial information related to natural disasters—especially heavy rainfall—and to identify affected areas and assess their impact in Romania is significantly reduced. Additionally, it ensures optimal conditions for processing and storing data, enabling near real-time information extraction.
Implementation Duration: 8 months
Technologies Used: OpenStack, Kubernetes, Minio, Rasterio, STAC, Apache Tomcat, GeoServer, MapStore, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, ESA SNAP
Services Provided: Custom system development
Project Components:
- Distributed processing system
- Distributed platform for virtualization and application orchestration
- Data download and synchronization services
- Data transformation services
- Data cataloging services
- Data visualization services
- Data access/download services
- Data processing services
2. Client relationship
The project was awarded through a public tender and implemented in partnership with STAS Computer. It was designed as a state-of-the-art solution using the latest technologies in the field.
We were selected due to our strong reputation in the IT market, both nationally and internationally, recognized for the quality of our implementations and professionalism. This was also demonstrated in a previous project for the same client.
The collaboration was highly productive, with a swift and efficient workflow, as reflected in the client’s testimonial below.
3. Project Execution
During the project, the following components were implemented:
- Distributed Processing System – Consisting of five nodes with a high-availability (HA) hardware architecture. Critical services were configured in a clustered mode with a replication factor of three for each component.
- Distributed Virtualization and Application Orchestration Platform – Optimized the use of hardware resources, computing power, volatile memory, and storage capacity.
- Data Download and Synchronization Services – Managed data synchronization between two STAC catalogs. This system included Discovery, Synchronization, and Deletion components to ensure complete data synchronization between a local and a remote source.
- Data Cataloging Services – Hosted a collection of Copernicus products downloaded via the data synchronization service, following the Spatio-Temporal Asset Catalog (STAC) standard.
- Data Transformation Services – Handled the transformation of Sentinel-2 data from SAFE format to Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF (COG).
- Data Visualization Services – Displayed geospatial datasets and their accompanying explanatory information (e.g., alphanumeric data, metadata, legends, etc.).
- Data Access/Download Services – Enabled downloading geospatial datasets or specific portions, as well as direct access to them.
- Data Processing Services – Processed Sentinel-1 data (reprojecting raw files into the appropriate UTM projection and converting radar bands VV and VH into an RGB representation suitable for visualization), Sentinel-2 LST, and OLCI (converting the dataset into a geographic projection (latitude/longitude) using WGS84 datum in NetCDF4-CF format).
4. Impact of the System
- One of the few projects of its kind implemented both nationally and internationally.
- Greatly improves and simplifies the beneficiary’s daily work with Sentinel satellite imagery.
5. Conclusion
INFRAMETEO-Copernicus is a challenging project, successfully implemented using the latest technologies and in full compliance with best practices.
