STAC (Spatio-Temporal Asset Catalog) has become a widely adopted standard for organizing and discovering spatio-temporal data. But when data moves across systems, infrastructures, and communities, discoverability alone is not enough.
At DKRZ, STAC is being taken one step further by treating STAC objects as FAIR Digital Objects (FDOs). This makes them persistent, uniquely identifiable, and machine-actionable, and they can be reliably used across distributed environments.
This lightning talk shows how STAC can evolve from a descriptive standard into a building block of PID-based data infrastructures. You will hear how this approach is being implemented in practice, what challenges arise, and other STAC providers can adopt it.
The goal is clear: move from identifying datasets to enabling actionable data objects and contribute to a more connected and interoperable data ecosystem.
Even with well-established standards like STAC (Spatio-Temporal Asset Catalog), working with spatio-temporal data across systems often remains fragmented. Data may be discoverable, but it is still difficult to reference consistently, reuse across infrastructures, or integrate into broader workflows.
In this session, you will learn how to expand STAC's role by treating STAC objects as FAIR Digital Objects (FDOs). This approach turns them into persistent, uniquely identifiable, and machine-actionable entities that can operate reliably across distributed environments.
You will learn how this concept is being implemented in practice using large-scale, distributed datasets. The focus is on concrete experience: how STAC and FDO principles can be aligned, what technical and organisational challenges arise, and how these are currently being addressed.
We provide clear takeaways for your own work:
- You will understand how STAC objects can be transformed into FAIR Digital Objects and what changes conceptually and technically.
- You will see how this approach improves interoperability across heterogeneous systems and infrastructures.
- You will gain insight into current challenges, open questions, and where community alignment is needed.
Treating STAC as FDO allows data objects to evolve from identifiable resources to actionable components within connected research infrastructures. You will gain insight into a leading-edge implementation that brings STAC and FDO together in a high-performance, large-scale data environment.
Dr. Ivonne Anders is a researcher in data management at the Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ), focusing on large-scale, distributed data infrastructures and the practical implementation of FAIR Digital Objects (FDOs). Her work addresses interoperability challenges in spatio-temporal data and HPC environments.
She serves as Co-Chair of the FDO Forum Working Group “Technical Specifications and Implementation” and is a member of the FDO Forum Steering Committee, contributing to the development of next-generation data concepts. She is also involved in NFDI4Earth, designing user-centred data services.
Her background in meteorology, cartography, and software engineering enables her to bridge scientific, technical, and infrastructural perspectives.