Here is an interesting technical overview of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a program that has been running for 25 years focused on integrating and analyzing data from hundreds of undersea probes, monitors and cameras.  Basically it is an aquarium monitor for all of the world’s oceans.  All of the data from the worldwide network is transmitted into an extremely large analysis system.  The amount of data is so staggering that they require bleeding edge tools just to properly look at them.  Imagine a file that is so big that no computer on earth can even begin to open it up, you get some sense of the challenge involved in making sense of the size and scope of the project.  Much like the Hubble Telescope, the data has to be broken apart in order to study smaller pieces, and then the resulting data set is reviewed by a separate set of nodes in the cloud.  And you thought your Apex gave you a lot of information?  Check out the LINK for a peek under the hood.