Managing bathymetric data in a hydrographic survey company and making the data accessible to clients

As data volumes increase, managing the large hydrographic datasets is not limited to the world’s hydrographic offices. The hydrographic survey companies contracted to carry out the surveys need to be able to store their data in an easily accessible, spatial and quick manner. They also need to be able to serve their data to clients via The Cloud. This demand is being increasingly seen across all the survey sectors, from Oil and Gas through to Offshore Renewables, Hydrography through to Coastal Surveys. MMT Group (NetSurvey and MMT combined) have almost 1 Petabyte of survey data that was stored, like most survey companies, in a flat, file server-based setup. Trying to find one particular survey was particular challenging and trying to find consecutive surveys was almost impossible. NetSurvey and MMT have performed hydrographic surveys for the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) in the UK, the Mareano Project for the Norwegian Hydrographic Service and also the Swedish and Finnish Maritime Administrations. The MCA surveys are both large in area and, for the Routine Re-Survey Contract, in time (over seven years). We wanted a system that would not only store bathymetry but also sediment types, digital video, survey reports and sub-bottom data. The Esri Bathymetric Information System (BIS) is a database specifically designed for this type of requirement and is accessed through the well-known and easily used Esri ArcGIS software. The Esri products also have the capability to serve the data either publicly or privately (to select clients and internally) via a simple web interface.