What are CATALYST Microservices?
Independent building blocks optimized for processing Earth imagery in the cloud
Image providers and governments continue to grow their catalogues and archives of Earth imagery in public clouds. This has opened an opportunity to leverage container technology and cloud resources to reshape processing pipelines and add unprecedented efficiencies and scale. With CATALYST Microservices it is possible to cost effectively process terabytes of Earth imagery in minutes.
What are containers?
Containers are standalone executable software packages that include everything needed to run a process, such as: code, runtime, security, and all other dependencies. Because of this, containers are light-weight and can run on any server (and OS) without the need for installation or configuration. This makes it possible to deploy and scale containers on any of our cloud partner servers, in seconds.
CATALYST Microservices is our library of containerized workflows and algorithms that are implemented on major cloud providers and orchestrated to automate and simplify the user experience, data acquisition, eliminate costly waste, and automatically scale to minimize project duration.
How do CATALYST Microservices optimize Earth image processing in the cloud?
Let’s compare CATALYST Microservices to a traditional implementation of the same workflow and scenario to better understand how CATALYST Microservices benefit Earth image processing in a cloud environment.
Scenario Details:
- The goal is to orthorectify 10,000 satellite images
- You must procure a software solution
- You have access to two powerful processing servers
- It takes 12 hours to download or upload all 10,000 images
- It takes 5 minutes to orthorectify 1 image
- Transfer the 10,000 Ortho-images to your customer’s server for final delivery
Implementation Comparison
CATALYST Microservices
Cost Certainty
- Register for a free API token
- Calculate cost based on consumption model
- Price includes: data, hardware, software, infrastructure
- Submit competitive quote
No installation or configuration
- Learning Curve (4 hours)
- Build workflow (2 hours)
No Download, Full Scalability
- Initialize 10,000 microservices in a few minutes at no extra cost
- Microservices initialize on a cloud server next to the data
- 10,000 images run in parallel at 5min per image
Transfer Results
- Transfer files to client server (12 hour upload)
Traditional Tech (Status Quo)
Estimated Costs
- Estimate cost of hardware (processing time)
- Estimate cost allocation of software
- Calculate cost of data
- Build buffer to account for unaccounted costs
- Submit quote with price buffer
Install and Configure Hardware
- Purchase and obtain software licenses (8 hours)
- Install and configure processing server (4 hours)
- Learning Curve (4 hours)
- Build workflow (2 hours)
Download Data, limited scalability
- Download data from cloud (12 hours)
- Run process on 2 local processing servers (3.5 days)
- Each server can run 5 images in parallel
- 10 images run in parallel at 5min per image
Transfer Results
- Transfer files to client server (12 hour upload)
Outcomes
CATALYST Microservices
Project Turnaround Time
Other Benefits
- Scaled the process to run all 10,000 images in parallel at the same price as running each in sequence
- Cost certainty made it easy to submit the most competitive price point
- Cost certainty eliminated risk to the profit margin
- Reduced wasteful costs and time by eliminating unnecessary data transfer and storage
- No installation or configuration of software and hardware simplifies and accelerates setup
Traditional Tech (Status Quo)
Project Turnaround Time
Other Challenges
- Expensive and time consuming to scale (increase processing capacity)
- Often build in price buffer to manage cost uncertainty
- Added transfer and storage costs
- Requires installation and hardware configuration
Get started today
Speak with one of our expert solution consultants to learn more about CATALYST Microservices.
