Category Archives: Operations

The Pegasus Workflow Manager and the Discovery of Gravitational Waves

Posted on February 19, 2016 by astrocompute

We have all heard so much about the wonderful discovery of Gravitational Waves – and with just cause! In today’s post, I want to give a shout-out to the Pegasus Workflow Manager, one of the crucial pieces of software used in … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, Black Holes, Computing, cyberinfrastructure, Gravitational waves, High performance computing, informatics, LIGO, Operations, Parallelization, programming, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, workflows | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A New Data Archive for Gemini – Fast, Cheap and in the Cloud

Posted on November 20, 2015 by astrocompute

I must congratulate my colleague Paul Hirst at Gemini – he is to my knowledge the first astronomer to use “cheap” and “cloud” in the same title. His talk on building a new archive for the Gemini telescopes was presented … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, Cloud computing, Computing, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data formats, Data Management, FITS, Gemini, informatics, information sharing, metadata management, Observatories, Operations, programming, Python, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, telescopes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Palomar Transient Factory: High Quality Realtime Data Processing in a Cost-Constrained Environment

Posted on May 5, 2015 by astrocompute

This is the title of a paper by Surace et al. (2015) currently available on astro-ph and presented as a paper at ADASS XXIV in October 2014. The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is an example of a cost-constrained project that is … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, High performance computing, informatics, information sharing, Observatories, Operations, Parallelization, programming, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Uncategorized, user communities | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The One-Degree Imager – Portal, Pipeline and Archive (ODI-PPA)

Posted on July 11, 2014 by astrocompute

This is the title of a fine presentation given by Arvind Gopu at the SPIE Meeting in Montreal, Canada on June 22nd.   The One-Degree Imager (ODI) is installed in the WIYN 3,5m telescope at Kitt Peak (Tucson, AZ). It … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Computing, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, DBMS, Grid Computing, High performance computing, informatics, information sharing, metadata, Observatories, Operations, programming, Scientific computing, social networking, software engineering, software maintenance, user communities | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ten things we would do differently today: Reflections on a decade of ALMA software development

Posted on July 3, 2014 by astrocompute

This is the title of an outstanding presentation given by Brian Glendenning and his team at the recent SPIE meeting in Montreal, Canada (June 22 -28, 2014).  The ALMA software has been an impressive effort over 12+ years,  involving 100 … Continue reading →

Posted in ALMA, archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, Computing, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, DBMS, High performance computing, informatics, information sharing, Operations, programming, Scientific computing, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Metadata and Data Management for the Keck Observatory Archive

Posted on June 23, 2014 by astrocompute

This is the title of a poster (spie14_koa_poster) by Hien Tran et al. (the et al. are the Keck Archive team), presented at the SPIE  Software and Cyberinfrastructure conference, part of “Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation” in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. Data … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, databases, informatics, information sharing, metadata, metadata management, Observatories, Operations, programming, Scientific computing, social networking, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Time domain astronomy, time series data, W. M. Keck Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Amazon Web Services and the Square Kilometer Array

Posted on January 13, 2014 by astrocompute

This week,  I report on what I think is a creative way to use cloud computing to support the development and preconstruction of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). The work is reported as an Amazon Web Services case study. The … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Cloud computing, computer modeling, Computing, Crowsdsourciong, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, databases, galaxies, galaxy formation, High performance computing, informatics, information sharing, Observatories, Operations, Parallelization, programming, Scientific computing, SKA, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, user communities | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Astroinformatics 2013 – Day Three, December 11 2013

Posted on December 10, 2013 by astrocompute

Day Three  of Astroinformatics 2013, hosted  by CSIRO, is well underway. We are discussing advances in data processing, manipulation and management – crucial topics in modern astronomy. You can see the agenda here, along with a growing list of presentations, … Continue reading →

Posted in astroinformatics, Astronomy, astronomy surveys, Cloud computing, computer modeling, computer videos, Computing, computing videos, cyberinfrastructure, data archives, Data Management, Data mining, High performance computing, History of Computing!, image mosaics, informatics, information sharing, Open Access, Operations, Parallelization, Scientific computing, social media, social networking, software engineering, software maintenance, software sustainability, Virtual Observatory, visualization, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Keck Observatory Archive: A Model for a TMT Archive?

Posted on July 26, 2013 by astrocompute

One of the topics discussed at the TMT Science Forum was the need for a searchable archive that would allow PIs to access their data and, when data were public, would provide data access for a broader scientific community. The … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, astroinformatics, Astronomy, data archives, Data Management, information sharing, Observatories, Operations, telescopes, TMT, W. M. Keck Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

TMT Operations Discussion: A Scientists Perspective

Posted on July 23, 2013 by astrocompute

Nestled among the science talks today was a presentation by Mike Bolte (UC Santa Cruz), on the operations concept for the TMT, and as a manager of operational archives I listened attentively. He mentioned that the initial operations plan was … Continue reading →

Posted in archives, Astronomy, data archives, Data Management, databases, information sharing, Observatories, Operations, software engineering, software maintenance, telescopes, TMT, user communities, W. M. Keck Observatory | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments