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User Workspace

Overview

The User Workspace service within the APEx Project Environments provides secure, personalised environments for individual users to perform a wide range of tasks, including development, data processing, visualisation, and analysis. These single-user environments are managed by JupyterHub and dynamically provisioned using Kubernetes, ensuring scalability, isolation, and ease of use.

It is designed to provide the following key benefits to users when accessing their instance:

  • Flexibility and customisation
    Configure a workspace with tools and settings tailored to specific needs.
  • Optimised for EO tasks
    Access specialised tools and libraries for Earth observation.
  • Integrated ecosystem
    Utilise other APEx services through your workspace.
  • Collaborative work
    Share workspaces within team to facilitate collaboration and data sharing. Enhance community engagement and knowledge sharing by publishing results.

Key features and capabilities of the User Workspace include:

  • Cloud services orchestration:
    High availability and performance of multi-user-facing services, via automated deployment and scaling of containerised applications, as well as built-in load balancing and service discovery mechanisms.
  • Secure, Isolated Environments:
    Each user is provided with a dedicated namespace within the Kubernetes cluster, ensuring resource isolation and secure data management.
  • Customisable Workspaces:
    Workspaces can be tailored to user needs with specific configurations and tools, including pre-configured environments for tasks like data analysis and machine learning.
  • Seamless APEx integration:
    Workspaces benefit from a generic, configurable framework, ensuring the delivery of a broad range of APEx applications and services, empowering efficient user workflows.
  • EO-focused tools access:
    Readiness for resource-intensive software libraries like SNAP and GDAL, which are specifically designed for Earth observation tasks.
  • Robust data management:, persistent storage and retrieval of data using PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs), along with data management tools, connectivity to external data sources, and data sharing mechanisms.

Showcase Scenarios

The User Workspaces support a variety of use cases, making them versatile tools for the EO community. Some typical scenarios include:

  • Development and Testing
    Researchers and developers can use the User Workspaces to develop and test new algorithms and models. For instance, a user might leverage the IDE integrated with JupyterHub to write and debug Python scripts for processing satellite imagery.

  • Data Analysis and Visualisation
    Analysts can perform exploratory data analysis and create visualisations using tools like JupyterLab or QGIS. For example, an analyst might use Jupyter notebooks to analyse climate data and visualise trends over time.

  • Educational and Training Purposes
    The User Workspaces can be used to create interactive tutorials and practical assignments that guide users through various aspects of APEx, from setting up workspaces and accessing data in the Product Catalogue to using the IDE for development tasks.

Stay Tuned

Additional information will be shared on this page as the project progresses.