AstroGrid: new technology for the virtual observatory

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AstroGrid new technology for the virtual
observatory

• SC2004
• Pittsburgh, PA
• November 2004

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But first...

• ...What is a Virtual Observatory?
• Dynamic collection of hardware, data and software
  working in harmony to solve arbitrarily large and
  complex astromonical problems.

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Virtual Observatories Unlocking new science
Federating multi-? data Deep Field Surveys
Nik Szymanek
NEP J1716.66708 an X-ray cluster at z0.81
Chandra X-ray image (C. Mullis) overlaid on a
deep BRI image (D. Clowe G. Luppino).
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Bridging communities
Semantic web/grid
Desktop astronomy
Virtual observatory (VO)
Web archives in astronomy
HPC
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AstroGrids position within VO
VO
Interactive exploration/ Experiment design
Bulk processing/ Experiment execution
AstroGrids emphasis
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Bulk processing ? workflow

• Hands-off operation
• Reproducible experiments
• Common, reusable procedures
• Everything is recorded
• Integrated with interactive system
• Virtual grad student

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Components within AstroGrid
Data grid
Compute grid
Web portal
Workflow System
Resource Registry
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Web portal
Basic controls in web browser
linked to traditional displays on desktop.
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Resource registry

• Description of all accessible resources
• Services
• Applications
• Archive data-sets
• Follows IVOA standards
• Standard interface for queries
• Standard XML schemata for resource entries
• Standard harvesting between registries
• Metadata for
• Humans
• Software agents

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Workflow Job Execution System
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Data grid DSA and MySpace
Desktop
Data-selection Service
Processing 1
Processing 2
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Compute grid Common Execution Architecture
Web services
Legacy/situated s/w
Common Execution Connector
Application as .exe file (local)
JES
Common Execution Connector
Application as .exe file (grid)
Common Execution Connector
Application as HTTP service
Registry
Common Execution Connector
Application as Java class
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What you get

• AstroGrid makes Java software for others to run.
• All our software is server-side
• We recommend other s/w suppliers for desktop
  components, e.g. Starlink, SAO
• Our services are web services
• Built with Apache Axis
• Run in Jakarta-Tomcat
• Delivered as web-archive (WAR) files.
• No user coding needed!
• AstroGrid software adapts to your legacy
  archive/application
• Highly configurable

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Follow-up

• Our web site http//www.astrogrid.org/
• Beta testing
• Contact Nic Walton (naw_at_ast.cam.ac.uk)
• Component Deployment
• Data Centre
• MySpace
• Local Registry
• Community
• Contact Nic Walton
• Software cooperation
• MySpace
• Workflow
• Data Centre
• Registry metadata updating
• Contact Tony Linde (ael_at_star.le.ac.uk), Keith
  Noddle (ktn_at_star.le.ac.uk)