Audit finds that error could actually mean less data flows to boffins because space agency may not be able to afford downloads
NASA needs 215 more petabytes of storage by the year 2025, and expects Amazon Web Services to provide the bulk of that capacity. However, the space agency didn't realize this would cost it plenty in cloud egress charges. As in, it will have to pay as scientists download its data.
That omission alone has left NASA's cloud strategy pointing at the ground rather than at the heavens.
The data in question will come from NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) program, which collects information from the many missions that observe our planet. NASA makes those readings available through the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).
To store all the data and run EOSDIS, NASA operates a dozen Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) that provide pleasing redundancy. But NASA is tired of managing all that infrastructure, so in 2019, it picked AWS to host it all
[...] "Specifically, the agency faces the possibility of substantial cost increases for data egress from the cloud," the Inspector General's Office wrote, explaining that today NASA doesn't incur extra costs when users access data from its DAACs. "However, when end users download data from Earthdata Cloud, the agency, not the user, will be charged every time data is egressed.
How many petabytes is SLS worth, I wonder?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Friday March 20 2020, @01:34PM
It sounds like the MBA spreadsheet monkeys have full control of NASA's strategic future of internal systems. Failing to understand the fundamentals of a complex system, and then confidently making sweeping, long-term decisions is really the strength of your typical MBA bureaucrat. Champagne and bonus all around boys!