Severin J. Gaudet

Observatory/data centre partnerships and the VO-centric archive: The JCMT Science Archive experience

We present, as a case study, a description of the partnership between an observatory (JCMT) and a data centre (CADC) that led to the development of the JCMT Science Archive (JSA). The JSA is a successful example of a service designed to use Virtual Observatory (VO) technologies from the start. We describe the motivation, process and lessons learned from this approach.

CANFAR: the Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomical Research

The Canadian Advanced Network For Astronomical Research (CANFAR) is a 2 1/2-year project that is delivering a network-enabled platform for the accessing, processing, storage, analysis, and distribution of very large astronomical datasets. The CANFAR infrastructure is being implemented as an International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) compliant web service infrastructure. A challenging feature of the project is to channel all survey data through Canadian research cyberinfrastructure. Sitting behind the portal service, the internal architecture makes use of high-speed networking, cloud computing, cloud storage, meta-scheduling, provisioning and virtualisation. This paper describes the high-level architecture and the current state of the project.

The Archives of the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre

In 1986, with the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope imminent, the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO) established an agreement with the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) whereby the DAO would receive a copy of HST data and serve as the Canadian archive centre . The Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) was the group which was formed to manage the Canadian HST archive.

Cloud access to interoperable IVOA-compliant VOSpace storage

Handling, processing and archiving the huge amount of data produced by the new generation of experiments and instruments in Astronomy and Astrophysics are among the more exciting challenges to address in designing the future data management infrastructures and computing services.We investigated the feasibility of a data management and computation infrastructure, available world-wide, with the aim of merging the FAIR data management provided by IVOA standards with the efficiency and reliability of a cloud approach. Our work involved the Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomy Research (CANFAR) infrastructure and the European EGI federated cloud (EFC). We designed and deployed a pilot data management and computation infrastructure that provides IVOA-compliant VOSpace storage resources and wide access to interoperable federated clouds. In this paper, we detail the main user requirements covered, the technical choices and the implemented solutions and we describe the resulting Hybrid cloud Worldwide infrastructure, its benefits and limitations.

The ALMA Science Archive

Science archives help to maximise the scientific return of astronomical facilities. After placing science archives into a slightly larger context, we describe the current status and capabilities of the ALMA Science Archive. We present the design principles and technology employed for three main contexts: query; result set display; and data download. A summary of the ALMA data flow is also presented as are access statistics to date.