HERE Anonymizer Self-Hosted supports multiple data message formats. Use them by providing the format's system name in the SOURCE_FORMAT and SINK_FORMAT configuration variables. To learn more, see Configuration of HERE Anonymizer Self-Hosted.

When choosing the data format for your implementation, remember that binary formats, such as Protobuf, have a smaller footprint but are harder to maintain.

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Note
Even if the message format supports multiple traces per message, it's recommended to have a single trace per message, as it works better for data streaming.

Data format	System name	Encoding type	Multiple traces per message
SDII	`SDII`	Protobuf	✅
SDII list	`SDII_MESSAGE_LIST`	Protobuf	❌
SENSORIS	`SENSORIS`	Protobuf	✅
HERE Probe	`HERE_PROBE`	JSON	✅
GPX	`GPX`	XML	❌

Terminology

The following table defines the most important terms used when talking about data messages.

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Note
The term "double numbers" refers to the Java data type.

Term	Definition
probe	A probe is a data set that records the state and attributes of a (usually moving) at a certain point in time.
chunk	A chunk is a collection of probe points and/or events. Each chunk is defined by a unique ID (trace chunk ID).
trace	A trace is a collection of chunks.
trajectory	Trajectory is used as a synonym for a trace.
location	A location is defined by longitude and latitude.
point	A point is defined by longitude, latitude, altitude, and timestamp.
event	An event is defined by type, sub-type, timestamp, raw event bytes, and attributes.
timestamp	A timestamp is the number of seconds or microseconds (depending on the required granularity) since the epoch when a certain event happened or a probe was collected.
longitude	The longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth. It's a double number in the range from -180.0 to 180.0.
latitude	The latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the surface of the Earth. It's a double number in the range from -90.0 to 90.0.
elevation	The elevation is the height of a point above the defined sea level. Sometimes referred to as altitude. It's a double number value expressed in meters.
speed	The speed is the speed of the device at the time when the probe was created. It's a double number value expressed in meters.
heading	The heading is the compass direction in which the device pointed at the time when the probe was created. It ranges from 0 to 360 (=north) with 90 (=east), 180 (=south), and 270 (=west).

Mandatory data entities

The following probe data entities are mandatory to perform meaningful anonymization:

Unique trace chunk ID
Longitude
Latitude
Timestamp
Speed
Heading

Compression formats

Data messages can be compressed to the Gzip format or have no compression applied. You can adjust the compression settings for source and sink connectors independently.

To see how to configure data message compression, Configuration of HERE Anonymizer Self-Hosted.