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rasdaman

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by rasdaman GmbH (with Constructor University) · since 1996 · also known as raster data manager, rasdaman community, rasdaman enterprise

Array database for massive multidimensional rasters, with SQL-style queries and OGC WCPS services.

array / scientificspatialdatabase engineopen source (copyleft)mature
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Overview

rasdaman (raster data manager) is one of the original array DBMSs. It stores huge multidimensional arrays such as satellite imagery, climate model output and sensor cubes as tiled, compressed objects and lets you slice, aggregate and combine them server-side with rasql, a SQL-style array language. It also serves OGC WCS, WMS, WMTS and WCPS, and its query model fed into the ISO SQL/MDA and OGC WCPS standards. It comes as an open-source community edition and a proprietary enterprise edition from rasdaman GmbH with federation and more. It is strongest for geospatial datacube services and remains a niche engine with a small community.

Scientific dataGeospatialAnalytics (OLAP)

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths

  • +Server-side slicing and aggregation of multi-TB raster datacubes
  • +Standards-based OGC web services out of the box
  • +Declarative array query language that shaped ISO SQL/MDA

Trade-offs

  • −Small community and limited documentation beyond geospatial use
  • −Key scale-out features are enterprise-only
  • −Operationally heavier than file-based array formats like Zarr or TileDB

Great for

  • +Earth observation datacube services
  • +Climate and weather model output analysis
  • +Serving rasters via OGC WCS/WCPS

Think twice for

  • −Tabular or transactional workloads
  • −Teams that prefer file formats in object storage

Capabilities

Native or official first-party support · 4 of 25 tracked

✓Transactions
✓Geospatial
✓Durable persistence
✓Compression
–Joins
–Secondary indexes
–Full-text search
–Vector search
–JSON
–Change data capture
–Triggers
–Stored procedures
–Materialized views
–TTL / expiry
–Pub/Sub
–Columnar storage
–In-memory
–Encryption at rest
–Role-based access
–Time travel
–Branching
–Online schema changes
–Streaming ingest
–Offline sync
–Runs in WebAssembly

Scale & consistency

Comfortable data size
Large · ≤ 1 PB
Horizontal scaling
Addon
Multi-region
No
Transactions
Full ACID
Consistency
Strong
Schema
Strict
Architecture
Client server, Distributed
Query languages
rasql, OGC WCPS

Federation of multiple servers is an enterprise feature; single servers handle multi-TB datacubes.

Deployment

Self-hosted Vendor-managed cloud Serverless Embedded Edge Kubernetes operator

Ecosystem

apis & protocolsOGC WCS, OGC WMS, OGC WMTS, OGC WCPS
client languagesC++, Java, Python

Alternatives to rasdaman

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TileDBArray / Scientific10.5

Embeddable multidimensional array storage engine for dense and sparse data on object storage.

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SciDBArray / Scientific3.7

Massively parallel array database co-designed by Michael Stonebraker; no longer actively offered.

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PostGISSpatial47.5

The standard spatial extension for PostgreSQL: geometry, geography, rasters and topology in SQL.

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KineticaColumnar / OLAP6.4

GPU- and vector-accelerated database for real-time spatial, time-series and vector analytics.

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QservRelational0.8

Distributed shared-nothing SQL database built to serve the Rubin Observatory's petascale sky catalogs.

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GenomicsDBArray / Scientific4.2

Sparse-array store for genomic variant data, built on TileDB and shipped inside GATK4.

rasdaman vs genomicsdb →

rasdaman FAQ

What is rasdaman?

rasdaman is an array / scientific database by rasdaman GmbH (with Constructor University), first released in 1996. rasdaman (raster data manager) is one of the original array DBMSs. It stores huge multidimensional arrays such as satellite imagery, climate model output and sensor cubes as tiled, compressed objects and lets you slice, aggregate and combine them server-side with rasql, a SQL-style array language. It also serves OGC WCS, WMS, WMTS and WCPS, and its query model fed into the ISO SQL/MDA and OGC WCPS standards. It comes as an open-source community edition and a proprietary enterprise edition from rasdaman GmbH with federation and more. It is strongest for geospatial datacube services and remains a niche engine with a small community.

Is rasdaman open source?

Yes. rasdaman is open source. License: GPL-3.0 server / LGPL-3.0 clients (community); proprietary enterprise.

Does rasdaman support ACID transactions?

Yes. rasdaman supports full ACID transactions, with strong consistency.

Does rasdaman scale horizontally?

rasdaman scales horizontally through an official extension, proxy or edition rather than in the core engine. It is comfortable at large scale (≤ 1 PB).

How can I run rasdaman?

You can self-host it.

What is rasdaman best for?

rasdaman is a strong fit for earth observation datacube services; climate and weather model output analysis; and serving rasters via OGC WCS/WCPS. Think twice for tabular or transactional workloads.

What are the best alternatives to rasdaman?

Common alternatives to rasdaman include TileDB, SciDB, PostGIS, Kinetica and Qserv. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.

How popular is rasdaman?

rasdaman ranks #423 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (3.9/100), and #4 among array / scientific databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.