Standards-based Solutions for Earth Observation Ground Segments
When organizations require geospatial data for critical decision-making processes, the ability to survey all available offerings and easily acquire them is paramount.  Open standards help remove barriers that impede data access so value-added products can be created, distributed and acted upon regardless of the tools used.

Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) is an initiative for the establishment of a European capacity for earth observation. It is a collaborative effort of the European Commission (EC) and European Space Agency (ESA) to establish a standardized framework for the collection, processing and distribution of earth observation data to be used for environmental and security monitoring. In 2005, the European Space Agency (ESA) began the Heterogeneous Mission Accessibility (HMA) project.  HMA is a joint initiative of the European space agencies and Canadian Space Agency, and is aimed at establishing harmonized access to heterogeneous earth observations missions’ data from multiple mission ground segments.

ERDAS Engagement
ERDAS is an enthusiastic proponent of open standards and interoperability as a long time member of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and participant in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).  For the HMA project, ERDAS initiated the specifications for earth observation metadata and the web service-based interface, designed the test procedures, and led the standardization process at OGC. ERDAS also supports the testing of the catalog component of the HMA Data Access Implementation Layer (DAIL), the central access point that servers interact with to search, order, and retrieve data.

As these standards evolve, ERDAS swiftly implements them in its own products.
ERDAS APOLLO Professional 2011 allows harvesting, securing and publishing metadata to the web via a fully HMA-compliant CS-W ebRIM service. ERDAS APOLLO Professional offers a pre-configured service that allows registration of ISO 19115/19119 metadata, OGC Earth Observation GML and OGC SensorML metadata. Additionally, its generic catalog model, APIs and framework enable implementation of the full harvesting/publishing/querying workflow on any custom metadata model. 

Supporting Policy Making
By advising and supporting the HMA, ERDAS is providing more widespread access to valuable earth data, thus improving public policy surrounding climate change and crisis response.  Through these technological improvements, ERDAS is creating positive effects on human lives.