Medium term sustainability of the Virtual Observatory

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Medium term sustainabilityof the Virtual
Observatory
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The Astronomical Virtual Observatory

• An interoperability layer on top of data and
  services (registry, queries, content, etc)
• Transition to operations, incrementally made
  available for community usage
• An international endeavour from the beginning
• International Virtual Observatory Alliance
• An alliance of very diverse national projects,
  each depending of its own national context
• Defines a common roadmap and discipline-specific
  interoperability standards

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The VObs components
Euro-VO Best effort alliance 8 partners incl.
NOVA
Data Centre Alliance (led by CDS) Populates the
VO with data and services FP6 Coordination
Action to help data providers and gather
feedback
Facility Centre (ESA, ESO) Support to users
Registry

• Technology Centre
• (AstroGrid)
• Distributed
• FP6 VO-TECH
• Infrastucture
• Design Study
• ESA-VO (et al.)

FP7 I3 EuroVO-AIDA covers the three aspects
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Users

• Science Driven
• The data services and tools are already part of
  everyday life of astronomers but seamless access
  to new data, new services
• Strong tool for integration of new European
  countries
• Constraints on data centres and technology
  developers, e.g.,
• They do not want to know about the standards and
  the VObs implementation has to be transparent
• They need a proper description of data
• Most want science ready data (especially for data
  they are not specialists about)
• All want good information about provenance
  (instrument, observation conditions, data
  processing)

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Data centres

• The VO e-Infrastructure is genuinely distributed
• First Census of European data centres
  (EuroVO-DCA)
• Inclusive definition (service to the community,
  quality, some sustainability)
• 66 answers
• Update of the Annex using the census results if
  needed (thanks to Mark Allen)
• A huge diversity in size, objectives and context
• from international agencies providing archives
  of their large telescopes to small teams in
  scientific laboratories willing to provide a
  service focussed on solving a specific question
• sharing of knowledge/knowledge infrastructure

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Census results (1)

• Observational data and products
• 58 data centres (126 archives, 1/3 from ESA, ESO,
  ASDC)
• Mostly processed data at least at some level (4/5
  science ready data, ½ science analysis products)
• 80 open access policy
• 38 data sets in VO, 45 intent to join

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Census results (2)

• Services, tools, software suites
• 38 data centres
• 35 in VO, 50 intend to join
• Theory archives and services newer subject
• 15 data centres
• More specialized, smaller user communities in
  general
• Access policies predominantly open
• Majority intend to use VO standards

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Technology Centre

• Interoperability standards, tools, portals
• The definition of the proper (usable and
  useful) standards is a huge task, which works
  when the proper people from the community are
  mobilized (archive providers, data centre staff)
  enough complexity to start with, not too much
  to remain useable by implementers and
  understandable by astronomers a delicate balance
• Take into account feedback from implementation by
  data centres and usage by scientists

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• VO-TECH Design Study
• (Astrogrid UK, CNRS, ESO, INAF)
• ESA-VO
• EuroVO-DCA

• Architecture (interoperability)
• Tools
• Intelligent resource discovery
• Data mining and visualisation
• Connection with Grid
• Interoperability standards
• Web 2.0, Semantics, data mining

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Medium term sustainability (1)

• International cooperation/agreement on
  interoperability standards is a must
• European coordination/cooperation has been and
  will remain critical
• learn from each other and global strategy
• improves global results and increases global
  impact
• RD/evolution of standards must continue
  (feedback, scientific and technical evolution,
  progressive inclusion of more complexity)
• Support to users through ESA/ESO (Facility
  Centre) and national projects

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Medium term sustainability (2)

• VO is part of research infrastructure
• New projects provision for data pipelines,
  data archiving, data distribution VObs
  compliance (and it seems that they understand it)
• Funding of data centres has to be consolidated in
  many cases European and national agencies,
  support from local authorities
• VObs support needed at different levels for the
  operational phase
• Support to national and Agencies (ESA, ESO) to VO
  projects
• IVOA is a best effort alliance, medium term
  commitment of the national projects needed
• European coordination how to get support on the
  medium term?