1. SKA Regional Centre Coordination Group (SRCCG)
Nick Rees
3 November2016

2. Regional Centre Concept:
Users
Regional Centre 1
Science Processing Centre
Users
Regional Centre 2
Users
AUS
Users
Science Processing Centre
Users
Users
RSA
Regional Centre N
Users
Observatory
User Community

3. First Guess at Distribution & Annual Costs
10 year IRU per 100Gbit circuit
Guesstimate of Regional Centres – based on SKA member locations
Some funding model will be needed for SKA.

4. Preamble
The SKA Board has recently endorsed the concept of SKA Regional Centres (SRCs) as its preferred model for meeting and managing the challenges posed by the extremely high data rates, data volumes and data analysis requirements of SKA Phase 1. Currently, the project is limited to the basic data products created by the Science Data Processor, stored locally in data processing facilities in the Host Countries (AUS/RSA). The scientific success of the SKA is dependent on a viable data management plan for the long-term (50+ years) curation and exploitation of the data products and the infrastructure necessary to achieve this.

5. Essential Functions of Regional Centres
provide access to SKA data products, subject to SKA data access policies;
provide the computational resources for processing, including science analysis and data visualization;
provide a common platform for the continued development and certification of software and data analysis tools;
provide a long-term science archive for SKA data products; and
provide local user support to their communities.

6. SRCCG remit define a minimum set of requirements for individual SRCs;
develop a set of requirements for the SRC network as a whole, including plans for the
physical network connecting SRCs, both together and with the SKAO sites;
develop the requirements for implementing an SKA data archive;
identify the requirements for, and coordinate the development of, technical interfaces between the SRCs and the SKA;
draft the MoU to be agreed between the SRCs and the SKA Observatory that accept the stated minimum requirements and SKA data access policies;

7. SRCCG remit (continued)
develop a set of data challenges to test and verify the capabilities and resources of each SRC, as well as the SRC network;
develop an accreditation process for the SRCs, including branding and appearance policies;
develop a process to ensure that software tools are interoperable across the SRC network;
develop a policy for the inclusion of user-generated advanced data products into the SRC archive;
develop SKA data heritage and access policies to that heritage data set for approval by the SKAO; and
investigate models for the future governance of the collaborative network of SRCs.

8. SRCCG membership SKAO: Members: External :
Antonio Chrysostomou (Chair; Head of Science Operations Planning)
Nick Rees (Head of SKA Computing and SoYware)
Miles Deegan (SDP Engineering Project Manager)
SRC Coordinator (to be appointed)
Members:
Séverin Gaudet (CADC/NRC, Canada)
Jasper Horrell (SKA-SA, South Africa)
Peter Quinn (ICRAR, Australia)
Yogesh Wadadekar (NCRA, India)
Michael Wise (ASTRON, The Netherlands)
Shenghua Yu (BAO, China)
External :
Ian Bird (CERN, Switzerland)
Andy Connolly (LSST/U Washington, USA)