Cloud-based digital platforms are increasingly becoming central for users to exploit the enormous amounts of Earth Observation (EO) data freely available today. A new initiative is now entering the EO platform landscape: the ESA funded openEO platform which was just released as the initial service offering to the public during the 2021 Phi Week.

Earth Observation archives today provide access to huge amounts of satellite-based observations of the planet. Following open data policies spearheaded by the Landsat program, the ESA/EC Copernicus Sentinel program is now the largest provider of EO data. The Sentinel satellites alone acquire more than 25 TeraByte of data and new observations every day.