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Protecting a large Earth observation archive means preserving more than its files. A sound stewardship plan must keep data intact, findable, readable, understandable, usable, and reproducible—and show that the archive can recover from failures. That requires coordinated controls for integrity, backups and versions, metadata and formats, lifecycle decisions, access, and tested recovery.
Define what “preserved” means
A storage system can retain every byte while the scientific record becomes unusable: a dataset may be impossible to find, its format may no longer be readable, or its variables may be uninterpretable without missing documentation. NASA’s 2016 stewardship report describes six outcomes for long-term Earth science data: bit integrity, discoverability and access, readability, understandability, usability, and reproducibility.
- Bit integrity: the stored data have not changed or become corrupted without detection.
- Discoverability and access: users can identify relevant holdings and retrieve them through maintained services or documented procedures.
- Readability: files can be opened with available or recoverable tools.
- Understandability: documentation and metadata explain what the files and values represent.
- Usability and reproducibility: users have enough context to apply the data appropriately and, where needed, understand how results were produced.
These outcomes make preservation a service and governance responsibility as well as a storage problem. A useful risk assessment should consider corruption, accidental deletion or overwrite, site or service outages, loss of credentials, format and software obsolescence, missing metadata, unauthorized access, and loss of custody over the official record. A 1992 NASA conference paper on very large archives also identified indexing, timely updates, retaining original received formats, software intrusion, and physical loss as concerns. Those are durable risk categories, not current NASA operational requirements.
Build a baseline for integrity, versions, and recovery
NASA PO.DAAC’s Levels of Service description lists checksum verification, approved file formats and structures, discovery and usage metadata, and backup and versioning of data, documentation, and metadata among its services. These controls address different failure modes and should be specified separately in an archive’s operating plan.
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- Checksums detect change. Record a checksum against a known-good file state and verify it later to detect corruption or unintended modification. A checksum can reveal a mismatch; by itself it does not restore the correct file or establish which version is authoritative.
- Versioning preserves identifiable states. Retain version records for data and the documentation and metadata that describe them. Make changes traceable rather than silently replacing an earlier state.
- Backups support recovery. A backup is useful only if the archive can retrieve and restore it when needed. Define who can initiate recovery, what records must be restored together, and how the restored state is validated.
- Access controls limit avoidable damage. Assign authority for writing, approving versions, and administering recovery. Consider whether one compromised account, credential set, or administrative mistake could affect every copy.
NASA’s Planetary Data System policy index lists separate policy areas for integrity checking, checksums, system availability and recovery, online repositories, disaster recovery, and data delivery and backup. Its integrity-checking entry is shown as amended on March 9, 2023. The index supports treating these as explicit policy topics; it does not establish one checksum interval, replica count, geographic separation, or recovery-time objective for all archives.
Set engineering targets for the archive’s service needs
Choose verification frequency, retained versions, independent copies, and recovery objectives through a documented risk and service assessment. Consider the importance and irreplaceability of the holdings, how quickly users need service restored, how much data could be lost between recoverable states, dependencies among files and metadata, and the cost and staffing needed to meet the target. Record the assumptions and approval authority. These are local engineering decisions, not universal NASA thresholds.
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Prove that recovery works
Document a restoration procedure and exercise it. A practical exercise should select a defined collection, restore its files and associated metadata and documentation from the recovery copy, verify integrity against known values, confirm the restored version and dependencies, and record any gaps or elapsed time. Use the results to revise procedures and targets. Merely having a backup or a checksum report is not evidence that the archive can return a usable collection to service.
Manage each dataset from acceptance through retirement
PO.DAAC’s data-management guidance treats a dataset as a lifecycle, not a completed ingest. Its lifecycle includes identification and prioritization, impact assessment and acceptance, integration with metadata and access protocols, review against requirements, ongoing operation, response to new versions, and eventual retirement or quarantine where appropriate. The guidance frames service expectations around quality, quantity, continuity, and latency.
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- Identify and assess. Establish what is being offered, its scientific and operational importance, expected continuity, and the conditions for acceptance.
- Accept and verify the accession. Assign responsibility for checking supplied files and ensuring the received material is complete and identifiable. Preserve the received representation when it matters to the record.
- Integrate the collection. Link files to collection- and granule-level metadata, documentation, and access protocols so users can discover and retrieve them in context.
- Review during operation. Check that the archive continues to meet its defined requirements for quality, quantity, continuity, and latency. Track changes to services and dependencies.
- Govern new versions. Identify what changed, who authorized it, and how the new state relates to prior states. Preserve version-specific metadata and documentation; do not make an update indistinguishable from the record it replaces.
- Decide on retirement or quarantine. Assign an owner to determine whether a collection is retired, replaced, or quarantined, and document what users can still access and what happens to its associated records.
Make handoffs explicit: who supplies the data and scientific context; who accepts and checks an accession; who maintains metadata and guides; who approves versions; who decides retention or quarantine; and who owns recovery exercises. If those responsibilities are left implicit, technically sound storage controls can still fail at the points where decisions and knowledge change hands.
Preserve formats, metadata, and scientific context
To keep files usable, retain the information needed to interpret both the data and their structure. PO.DAAC recommends netCDF-4 or HDF5 for data providers, citing their ability to support complex data models, metadata, portability, broad software support, and performance options. Its guidance also highlights Climate and Forecast (CF) conventions and Attribute Conventions for Data Discovery (ACDD): CF conventions support consistent interpretation of variables and spatial and temporal references, while ACDD describes dataset scope and contents to support discovery.
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These recommendations are not a reason to convert every existing collection to one format. A migration can alter data, metadata, precision, or the behavior of downstream tools. Evaluate the needs of the product, its dependencies, and its designated users before changing representations. Retain a record of the original and migrated states, the conversion method, and validation results when migration is undertaken.
Documentation should preserve enough context for a future user to identify and use the holdings, including:
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- file format, structure, and relevant software or processing dependencies;
- metadata conventions and the meaning of variables and attributes;
- spatial and temporal references, units, and dataset scope;
- data quality information and known limitations; and
- processing methods and version history needed to interpret or reproduce results.
PO.DAAC’s service descriptions call for user guides that cover science variables, geospatial and temporal information, data quality, and methods at the appropriate service level. Keep guides and metadata under preservation controls alongside the files they explain; an intact dataset with detached or outdated documentation can be difficult to use correctly.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Choose cloud, on-premises, or hybrid operations by their recovery properties
Cloud and on-premises storage are operating models, not preservation guarantees. Compare them by the full path from detection of a problem to restoration of a usable collection, as well as by access, governance, cost, and the ability to move holdings elsewhere.
| Model | Potential fit | Questions the archive must answer |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud | Scalable access or processing near hosted data; can reduce the need to download large holdings for some workflows. | Are recovery copies independent of the same account, credentials, administrative controls, and failure domain? Who pays for storage, compute, retrieval, and transfer? How will holdings and services be moved if the arrangement changes? |
| On-premises | Direct institutional control over infrastructure and operating procedures. | Can the site withstand relevant physical or operational incidents? Are media checked and refreshed as needed? Is there a separate recovery arrangement, and can staff restore and validate the collection? |
| Hybrid | Can combine local operations with cloud access or other recovery arrangements. | Which copy is authoritative? Are copies independently recoverable, and are versions and metadata synchronized? Who is responsible for each system and for testing end-to-end restoration? |
The table describes decision questions, not claims that one model is inherently safer. A cloud copy is not automatically an independent backup if the same account, credentials, deletion path, or administrative incident can affect both. Similarly, keeping data on institutional premises does not by itself address site loss, media degradation, or restore readiness.
Keep LAADS-specific details in scope
NASA’s LAADS DAAC cloud page describes access to LAADS data in AWS us-west-2 through S3, analysis near the holdings, and scalability. The page says Earthdata access remains free under NASA policy while users are responsible for their own cloud compute or storage costs; it also describes on-premises download methods continuing during migration. These are LAADS-specific service details, not terms that can be assumed for other archives or providers.
The LAADS migration table, updated September 25, 2023, reports 5,021 TB across the migration phases listed on that page. That is the table’s phased-migration total, not the size of all NASA Earth observation archives or a current total for LAADS holdings. The table shows multiple phases marked complete and one without a completion status, so it should not be treated as a statement of present migration status.
Quick Recap
Turn the plan into an operating checklist
- Scope: Define which data, versions, metadata, documentation, software context, and services are official holdings.
- Ownership: Name accountable owners for accession, metadata, version approval, retention decisions, access, and recovery.
- Integrity: Specify known-good checksum creation and verification procedures, how exceptions are investigated, and how corrected states are recorded.
- Recovery: Identify recovery sources, access authority, restoration steps, validation criteria, and the locally selected service targets.
- Lifecycle: Document acceptance, review, update, migration, retirement, and quarantine decisions, including how users are informed of changes.
- Usability: Preserve format, conventions, variable definitions, methods, quality information, and spatial and temporal context with the data.
- Architecture: Assess whether copies are independent across relevant failure and administrative domains, and account for operating, retrieval, transfer, and exit costs.
- Evidence: Keep records of verification, restoration exercises, migrations, approvals, and unresolved exceptions so stewardship can be reviewed rather than assumed.
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