17
3. THE CEO INITIATIVES TO COLLECT AND ANALYZE USER
REQUIREMENTS FOR EARTH OBSERVATION
launched within these components and are ongoing. These include the
following:
1.3.1
Application support
The CEO Program is encouraging the development of EO applications by
shared-cost funding of appropriate projects. These include the Calls for
Proposals issued by DGXII of the European Commission, under Area 3.3
(Space techniques applied to environmental monitoring and research) of the
Environment and Climate program, and a number of projects in support of
the Services of the Commission. Actions to make ECMWF and
EUMETSAT data sets accessible have also started.
1.3.2
User support
User Support implements initiatives on metadata standards, on a longterm European Digital Data Archive (EDDA) for Earth Observation, on an
inventory of EO algorithms, models and software, on EO education
resources and on market development for new customer segments of EO. An
operational Helpdesk service was launched in 1996.
1.3.3
Enabling services
The EWSE (European Wide Service Exchange), which represents the
testbed for the CEO’s electronic data and information exchange system, was
launched in September 1995. Since then, over 1500 users and over 800
resources (encompassing 341 organizations, 331 EO products and 130 case
studies) have registered with this service. Every week the EWSE received in
excess of 7000 inquiries.
The next generation system developed by the Enabling Services is now
called INFEO. The corresponding URL is http://infeo.ceo.org/.
The vision is to provide European EO Users with a ‘one-stop shopping’
facility that will be an easy-to-use system for querying data repositories on
geographic, thematic, sensor or temporal subjects. INFEO builds on the
performance and interoperability of existing information systems rather than
replacing them. It is based on the EWSE prototype and designed such that,
although the databases are located in various places across Europe, it is
perceived by its users as a single integrated system. A number of
Middleware Nodes (MWND) allow customers to search for the data,
information and services they need, and allow catalogue owners, service
3. THE CEO INITIATIVES TO COLLECT AND ANALYZE USER
REQUIREMENTS FOR EARTH OBSERVATION
launched within these components and are ongoing. These include the
following:
1.3.1
Application support
The CEO Program is encouraging the development of EO applications by
shared-cost funding of appropriate projects. These include the Calls for
Proposals issued by DGXII of the European Commission, under Area 3.3
(Space techniques applied to environmental monitoring and research) of the
Environment and Climate program, and a number of projects in support of
the Services of the Commission. Actions to make ECMWF and
EUMETSAT data sets accessible have also started.
1.3.2
User support
User Support implements initiatives on metadata standards, on a longterm European Digital Data Archive (EDDA) for Earth Observation, on an
inventory of EO algorithms, models and software, on EO education
resources and on market development for new customer segments of EO. An
operational Helpdesk service was launched in 1996.
1.3.3
Enabling services
The EWSE (European Wide Service Exchange), which represents the
testbed for the CEO’s electronic data and information exchange system, was
launched in September 1995. Since then, over 1500 users and over 800
resources (encompassing 341 organizations, 331 EO products and 130 case
studies) have registered with this service. Every week the EWSE received in
excess of 7000 inquiries.
The next generation system developed by the Enabling Services is now
called INFEO. The corresponding URL is http://infeo.ceo.org/.
The vision is to provide European EO Users with a ‘one-stop shopping’
facility that will be an easy-to-use system for querying data repositories on
geographic, thematic, sensor or temporal subjects. INFEO builds on the
performance and interoperability of existing information systems rather than
replacing them. It is based on the EWSE prototype and designed such that,
although the databases are located in various places across Europe, it is
perceived by its users as a single integrated system. A number of
Middleware Nodes (MWND) allow customers to search for the data,
information and services they need, and allow catalogue owners, service