Data Rods: High speed, time-series analysis of massive cryospheric data sets using pure object databases

A data rod is a conceptual data object, defined as the time-series of data at a specific set of gridded coordinates. Ideally, a single data rod encapsulates all the information known at that location through time. The Data Rods project sought to store collections of data rods in stand-alone or distributed databases, providing users with direct access to large collections of remotely-sensed data (as opposed to only allowing direct access to the metadata). Temporal data analyses could then be performed by querying for the set of data rods that cover the spatial area of interest. This query process would implicitly retrieve only the data necessary for the desired analysis, avoiding the overhead of downloading and filtering extraneous data. Combined with server-side processing and user-friendly analytical tools, the project´s overarching objective was to reduce the research cycle time from weeks or months down to days, perhaps less.