A study of global data flows is to be completed by the SDCG for GFOI. The objective of this study is to explore - for a well-defined and bounded practical application scenario, namely a years worth of global forest observations data from the GFOI core optical data streams to the relevant countries ? pros and cons of different architectures, technical elements, and implementation of data storage, handling, and processing tools to support the full list of GFOI countries. It will be useful to have numerical evidence for a practical example such as GFOI in order to inform the broader work of the CEOS Chair (CSIRO)-led ad hoc team looking at Future Data Architectures. Factors to be specified, defined and considered include: national requirements, data volumes, bandwidth, processing capacity, ?analysis ready? data products, Data Cube storage architectures, national infrastructure, costs and technical capacity.