Case Study 1 for Academic Applications of the METATAXA ICAT Software Suite

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Case Study 1- for Academic Applications of the
METATAXA ICAT Software Suite

• Kerstin Kleese van Dam
• METATAXA
• info_at_metataxa.com

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STFC in the UK

• The UK Science and Technology Facilities Council
  (STFC) is a group of Government funded National
  Laboratories that provide large scale
  experimental and computational facilities to the
  international academic and commercial research
  community.
• METATAXA staff provided software and contracting
  effort to STFC for this project.

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Installations at STFC The METATAXA ICAT Software
Suite is currently used in production at ISIS and
CLF and in pre-production at DLS. It has been
developed to enhance the science carried out at
these facilities through better knowledge access
and management.
Diamond Synchrotron (DLS)
ISIS Neutron and Muon Facility
Central Laser Facility (CLF)
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STFC - ISISPulsed Neutron and Muon Source

• Inaugurated in 1985.
• 26 Instruments.
• Back catalogue of 1.8 106 files 4Tb of data 4Gb
  of metadata.
• Currently building a second target which will
  start operating in October 2008.

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STFC - Central Laser Facility from dual beam
Petawatt to commercial size lasers

• Multiple lasers VULCAN, ASTRA, Laser For Science
• New laser Astra-Gemini - October 2007
• Targets area are rebuild for each experiment
  with new diagnostics.

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Diamond Light SourceThird generation 3 GeV
synchrotron

• First users in February 2007
• Currently operates 6 beamlines
• Will host up to 40 research stations
• Which will produce between a few Mbytes and
  1Tbyte of data per day.

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Integration at STFC The METATAXA ICAT Software
Suite has been linked into all business and
operational processes from the online proposal
system, to data acquisition to data analysis and
publication. Both within and across the
facilities.
Diamond Synchrotron (DLS)
ISIS Neutron and Muon Facility
Central Laser Facility (CLF)
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ICAT and the STFC Proposal Systems
The online proposal system is the entrance point
to the Data Management System, and is a rich
source of contextual information about the users
experiment.
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ICAT and STFC Data Acquisition

• Plug-ins for the data acquisition system ensure
  automatic, quality controlled collection of data
  and metadata. ICAT can be easily linked to any
  existing system.
• ISIS
• SECI (C, .net) with link to LabView and
  openGenie
• DLS
• Generic Data Acquisition (Java, on top of EPICS)
• CLF
• For Laser Diagnostics, (LabView)

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ICAT and STFC Storage Management

• STFC uses the Storage Resource Broker for its
  Storage Management, this has been integrated with
  ICAT for data access and delivery.
• Main advantage
• Decoupling physical file location from the
  logical one.
• Strict Security
• Expandable to many storage systems

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Customised Data Access
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Underlying Data Infrastructure
ICAT Software Suite
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Deployment Environment at DLS
Active Directory
DataPortal
Diamond Proposal Web pages
People DB
DUO
DUO Desk
DLS ICAT
SRB
Data / metadata
IKitten
DDH StorageD
GDA
Diamond, CICT
Atlas Data Store
NexusFile Data
Modified by ICAT suite
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Little complexity for Users
The users only see three interfaces to interact
with the infrastructure, two of which Data
Acquisition and Proposal System have been
familiar to them for some time.
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Achieved for STFC

• Our package of software and contracting delivered
  higher efficiency and thus cost savings through
  integration of the Facilities business and
  operational services
• One online Proposal system customised for each
  facility
• Integration of ISIS and CLF user offices
• Central Catalogues of all data produced at the
  facilities
• Single Sign on access for users to all IT
  services
• Use of central storage management and storage
  systems

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Achieved for STFC Users
With the usage of the ICAT software suite a 20
year back catalogue was created for ISIS. The
catalogue gives access to 93000 Scientific
Studies and 1.87 million Data Files.
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Achieved for STFC Users
Easy access to all resources through Single Sign
On Easy access to experimental data through ICAT
and Data Portal Easy data sharing with
collaborators through ICAT and Data Portal Easy
access to past experimental data to support
higher quality research now.
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Can we be of help to you?

• We are open for business
• Software, Consultancy and Contracting
• If you would like help with your data please
  contact us.
• If you have a customer or business contact who
  would benefit from our expertise, please let us
  know.
• www.metataxa.com
• info_at_metataxa.com