Remotely-sensed geophysical databases: Experience and implications for generalized DBMS

This paper presents the characteristics of scientific remotely-sensed databases that are relevant to -- And pose unique challenges for -- general-purpose database management systems (DBMSs). We describe a prototype system that integrates geophysical data and its metadata from both satellite and in situ sources, using a relational general-purpose DBMS to manage the catalog and observational data, and a video optical disk to archive images. Based upon our experience with this application, we suggest augmentations to DBMSs that would facilitate their use not only for scientific databases, but also for engineering, document, and even commercial database applications.