ℹ️ Introduction to the VRE
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ℹ️ Introduction to the VRE¶
The VRE is a cloud service based on Jupyter technology to lower the barrier to entry for researchers to use Aeolus products. We provide the hardware and the software stack so that you can start programming immediately without configuring anything on your computer. Data and software are stored and executed in the cloud.
The VRE is an extension of VirES (Virtual environments for Earth observation Scientists) - a server system and a graphical web interface to allow easy visualisation and manipulation of Aeolus products. With the VRE you are now able to bring the Jupyter & Python ecosystem to data retrieved via VirES. Both services are provided by ESA through EOX IT Services.
The goal of this project is to reduce the hurdles that researchers face in data and software management, and to empower them to build more interoperable and reproducible research code. While you can run code on the VRE without any initial setup, we also fully support accessing data from VirES on any machine through the viresclient Python package.
What is Jupyter?¶
Project Jupyter is a broad open-source project to build tools and standards for interactive computing. JupyterLab is their flagship creation which brings a development environment to the web, targeting the workflows of (data) scientists based around Jupyter Notebooks: computational notebooks which weave live code with narrative, extensible with interactive elements.
There are many other projects integrating with the Jupyter ecosystem - some highlights:
Guides to making use of JupyterLab & Python:
Jupyter Meets the Earth - Introduction for Scientists
Project Pythia - A Community Educational Resource for Geoscientists
Data 8 - UC Berkeley Foundations of Data Science course
Teaching and Learning with Jupyter - A handbook for educators
Wider software & infrastructure projects