Geospatial mapping images and surveys are designed for a variety of different purposes, including everything from the development of transportation systems; to the creation of the accurate geographical maps we rely on daily for GPS navigation, to planned missions to Mars. It’s true – it’s possible to map space, and rocket scientists are busy doing that. The technology that’s used relies heavily on highly specialized software, but even the most advanced application in the world can’t achieve its objective without one thing: equally advanced hardware performance.
When it comes to geospatial mapping, satellite imagery and surveys, if storage systems aren’t up to snuff it can wreak havoc on your ability to deliver an accurate and fully functional end product. Having adequate storage capacity to allow for the creation of maps and surveys is a chief concern. Without it, you run the risk of flat out not being able to create your output file formats.
But even if storage capacity is adequate, this may not be enough. Not only do you need space, you also need serious throughput to ensure that your ability to write data is not the bottleneck within your infrastructure. Nothing is worse than learning that 5GB file you just spent your valuable time waiting for is useless. And the reality is that the larger the individual files are, the higher the risk of something going wrong in the disk write process.
The Bottom Line is that the storage system you deploy holds the responsibility of storing highly valuable data. You have to think about what the cost of acquisition for any digital asset is, what its replacement cost is (if its even possible to do so) and what the cost of lost productivity will be in you lose access to that data.
All of these risks can be mitigated by ensuring the responsibility for managing those data blocks is given to a fully mature, heavily vetted storage subsystem. If the storage space you’re working with is just above the minimum requirements you run the risk of not only losing critical data that’s been collected from a variety of sources, but also of limiting the practical use of the maps and surveys created if the hardware’s being stretched to its limits. For these reasons it’s vital that the hardware that’s being used to store the data is capable of providing optimum system performance.
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