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Google Earth's photographer builds out infrastructure

01.03.2006
The company responsible for those cool satellite images accessed by millions of Google Earth users said this week that it has almost completed an enormous upgrade to its internal IT infrastructure to increase production and support the launch of two more imagery satellites over the next two years.

DigitalGlobe Inc. said that at the center of its IT upgrade is its storage, which so far includes more than 200TB of high-end and midrange storage capacity from Hitachi Data Systems Inc. and new data management software from Advanced Digital Information Corp.

The upgrades have quadrupled productivity, according to Luc Trudel, director of IT operations at DigitalGlobe in Longmont, Colo.

The company also rolled out Gigabit Ethernet ports throughout its LAN and plans to install 10Gbit/sec. Ethernet connectivity later this year in other parts of its infrastructure.

"Once our second satellite is launched, data volume will increase fivefold, and the eventual launch of a third satellite will further increase data volume," Trudel said.

In an e-mail response to questions from Computerworld, Trudel said he did not calculate an ROI on the project. However, he added, the new infrastructure means his group can process satellite images in about one-third to one-fourth the time it previously took -- reducing it from 12 hours to three.