For complementing its Central Facilities capability in Darmstadt and taking more benefit from specialized expertise in Member States, EUMETSAT created Satellite Application Facilities (SAFs), based on co-operation between several institutes and hosted by a National Meteorological Service. The Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF) is an answer to the common requirements of meteorology and oceanography for a comprehensive information on the ocean-atmosphere interface. One of the objectives of the OSI SAF is to produce, control and distribute operationally in near real-time OSI SAF products using available satellite data with the necessary Users Support activities.