NOAA has entered into separate multiyear contracts with AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft to provide the public with cloud-based access to the agency’s environmental data sets, in accordance with the agency’s full and open data policies. NOAA generates tens of terabytes of data every day from satellites, radars, ships, weather models, and other sources.
“NOAA’s wealth of world-class environmental data will now be more accessible through partnerships with commercial cloud providers, which will allow the agency to better manage a rapidly increasing volume of data going forward,” said Neil Jacobs, Ph.D., acting NOAA administrator. “Cloud-based storage and processing is the future. Not only will this improved accessibility enhance NOAA’s core mission to protect life and property, but it will also open up new and exciting areas of research at universities and significant market opportunities for the private sector.”
This is the latest milestone of the ongoing NOAA Big Data Project, which seeks to remove obstacles to public use of the agency’s data by combining three powerful resources: NOAA’s expansive collection of high-quality environmental data and expertise; the vast infrastructure and scalable computing capabilities of our industry collaborators; and the innovative energy of the American economy.
