recent posts

• 2026-03-18

  (Re)Making Cirrus: Three lessons learned

  Reflecting on five-plus years of building Cirrus, Element 84’s data orchestration framework, three core lessons emerge that apply to software projects generally: follow the money to understand what drives development, expect the pendulum of overcorrection and iteration, and hold fast to an unchanging vision. Part 2 of 2.
• 2026-02-23

  (Re)Making Cirrus: Reflections on five years spent building an open-source data orchestrator

  Cirrus, Element 84’s open-source data orchestration framework, recently turned five years old — and we’ve rebuilt it at least three times along the way. This is a retrospective on where Cirrus came from, from its origins in NASA’s Cumulus through the STAC Workflows idea, the project CLI, the SWOOP detour, and finally the v1.0.0 release, plus a look at where it’s headed next.
• 2025-11-04

  Metadata makes the data format: metadata storage and representation across array formats

  When configured equivalently, COG and Zarr store the exact same data bytes. So what actually distinguishes one raster format from another? Metadata. We get philosophical about what metadata even is, examine how TIFF and Zarr each represent it, tour the various ways geospatial coordinate information is encoded across formats, ask where metadata should live, and make the case that formal, versioned conventions are what truly enable interoperability.
• 2025-09-23

  Redefining cloud native with the Coalesced Chunk Retrieval Protocol

  What happens if we question current assumptions around Cloud-Native Geospatial (CNG) and imagine what it could be if we were to redefine it with new technologies? The Coalesced Chunk Retrieval Protocol (CCRP) is one idea born of this thinking, aiming to help make CNG more efficient and easier for both data consumers and producers.
• 2025-08-23

  A new look, a new domain, a new start

  Back from the dead with a new look and a new domain!

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upcoming presentations

• 2026-08-30

  Exploring Cloud Native Geospatial Data Formats: Hands-on with Raster Data workshop

  FOSS4G 2026 | Hiroshima, Japan
• 2026-08-31

  Exploring Cloud Native Geospatial Data Formats: Hands-on with Vector Data workshop

  FOSS4G 2026 | Hiroshima, Japan
• 2026-09-03

  Anatomy of a file talk

  FOSS4G 2026 | Hiroshima, Japan
• 2026-09-03

  Do formats exist? Towards a unified foundation for data tooling talk

  FOSS4G 2026 | Hiroshima, Japan
• 2026-10-07

  Anatomy of a file talk

  CNG Forum 2026 | Snowbird, UT, USA

view all presentations →