Planetary Computer Pro on Microsoft Azure
What is Planetary Computer Pro?
Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro is an enterprise platform for geospatial data analysis that provides access to petabytes of environmental, satellite, and climate data. The service combines an extensive data catalog with cloud computing resources for analyzing global environmental changes.
The platform builds on the public Microsoft Planetary Computer and extends it with enterprise features: private data integration, expanded compute capacity, SLA guarantees, and compliance features for enterprise requirements. Users can access data such as Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, Landsat, MODIS, climate models, and biodiversity data.
Planetary Computer Pro uses cloud-optimized formats (Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF, Zarr) and integrates with Azure Machine Learning, Synapse Analytics, and Databricks for scalable analysis workflows.
Typical Use Cases
Climate risk assessment: Insurance and financial companies analyze climate data to assess physical risks for assets. Combined analysis of historical weather data, flood models, and vegetation indices shows risk exposure across portfolios.
Agricultural monitoring: Farms use satellite imagery for precision farming, crop forecasting, and irrigation optimization. NDVI analyses (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) show plant health across large areas.
Sustainability reporting: Companies document environmental impacts of their supply chains by analyzing deforestation, water use, and land use changes in commodity regions.
Biodiversity monitoring: Conservation organizations track habitat changes, species distribution, and ecosystem health over time by combining satellite imagery with biodiversity databases.
Frequently Asked Questions about Planetary Computer Pro
What distinguishes Pro from the free version?
The free Planetary Computer Hub version offers access to public data with limited compute resources. Pro extends with private workspace isolation, higher compute limits, bring-your-own-data integration, enterprise support, and SLA guarantees for productive workloads.
What data is available?
The catalog includes: Sentinel-2 and Landsat satellite imagery, MODIS surface reflectance, ERA5 climate reanalyses, NASADEM elevation models, Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), land cover classifications, and many more datasets. New data is continuously added.
Can I integrate my own data?
Yes, Planetary Computer Pro supports integration of your own geospatial data via Azure Storage. Private data can be combined with public catalog data and analyzed together.
How is analysis performed?
The platform provides JupyterHub for interactive analysis with Python (GeoPandas, Rasterio, xarray). For productive pipelines, workflows can be orchestrated with Azure Machine Learning, Azure Synapse, or Databricks.
What does Planetary Computer Pro cost?
The pricing model is based on compute resources used and storage. Public data is free to access; fees apply for processing and private data storage. Contact Microsoft for enterprise pricing.
Integration with innFactory
As a Microsoft Solutions Partner, innFactory supports you in integrating Planetary Computer Pro for environmental data analysis and sustainability projects. We help with data pipelines, ML workflows, and reporting solutions.
Contact us for a non-binding consultation on Planetary Computer Pro and geospatial data analysis.
