1. The Virtual Radiation Belt Observatory (ViRBO) and tools for radiation belt science http://virbo.org/ R.S. Weigel Department of Computational and Data Sciences George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia

2. Contributors Software * Eric Kihn (NOAA/NGDC, ViRBO Web and API) * Mikhail Zhizhin (RFO, ViRBO Web and API) * Dmitry Mishin (RFO, ViRBO Web and API) * Dmitry Kokovin (RFO, ViRBO Web and API) * Jeremy Faden (Cottage Systems, Autoplot) Data * Dan Baker (CU/LASP, Data and metadata) * Sebastian Boudier (Onera, Data calibration) * Janet Green (NOAA/SEC, Data and metadata) * Shri Kanekal (CU/LASP, Data and metadata) * Reiner Friedel (LANL, Data and calibration) * Paul O'Brien (Aerospace, Data and metadata)

3. The Heliophysics Data Environment

4. Outline What is a VxO? Goal of VO effort Where to start Relevance of VO effort to Scientist Steps to create VO environment Needed services ViRBO

5. What is a VxO Virtual Observatory where x represents a domain such as thermosphere/ionosphere or radiation belt For a given community, a VxO provides –A comprehensive list of available data –Community-specific services on data –Connections to other VxOs with relevant services

6. Goal of VO effort “VOs should make ‘standard’ scientific research much more efficient.” [Roberts et al., 2005] Rate of science output must keep up with rate of potential science output given amount of available data The framework which is used must allow for this Requires improvements in: searchinterfaces analysisvisualization accesscommunication … all parts of the chain from instrument or model output to end user must continuously improve.

7. History In (funded) development for about 3 years A fundamental change in the data approach Virtual Observatories for Radiation Belt, Thermosphere/Ionosphere, Magnetosphere, Solar, and Heliosphere. Newer services include an event list manager, waves, and an energetic particles.

8. Where to start Look at http://vspo.gsfc.nasa.gov/http://vspo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Key function: High-level pointers to known data sets. If you know of a data set that you can’t find a reference to there, let them know. For more detailed information and services, VSPO will return pointers to relevant Virtual Observatory.

9. Relevance to Scientist Many of us have become data managers and solve similar problems do not depend on science specialty. We build ad-hoc solutions If you have a problem, ask if it is cross- domain. –If it is, there is probably another person or VO working on a similar problem. There is usually potential for leveraging effort. Example: Event list Example: Web browser visualization –Identify and develop cross-cutting services. They eventually become “core” services.

10. Steps to create VO environment 1.Describe the data in a standard format (SPASE; http://spase- group.org/). Primary VxO activity in past 3 years. If you know of a data product that does not have associated metadata, tell a VO. 2.Create services 3.Connect services

11. Steps to create VO environment 1.Describe the data in a standard format (SPASE; http://spase- group.org/). Primary VxO activity in past 3 years. If you know of a data product that does not have associated metadata, tell a VO. 2.Create services 3.Connect services

12. Key Concept Everything should be viewed as a service

13. Example Services CCMC – Community Coordinated Modeling Center VMR – Will add services to CCMC data SSCWeb – Orbit calculations ViRBO - L* calculations (using SSCWeb data)

14. Needed Services, Tools, and Roles Metadata –Creators –Standard –Query –Edit –Management Data –Creators –Ingestion service (with versioning!) Data Base –API –General –Mass store and backup –Fast Cache (Content delivery service) –Filter service Visualization –Pre-computed –Static and on demand –Interactive and dynamic

15. ViRBO [http://virbo.org/] Breaking the VO paradigm in many ways (not just connecting services and creating metadata) Improved high-level tools and services are fine, but first –Increase data accessibility –Increase amount of available data We have: –Created many climatological data sets –Simplified access to many existing data sets. –Creating a time series server –See virbo.org for more …

16. Data [http://virbo.org/]

17. Future and existing services –L and L* data base –L-sort plots –Fly-through AP-8/AE-8 and AP-9/AE-9 –Hosting SVN for AP-9/AE-9 development –Hosting meeting notes and documents –Work with RBSP to develop or connect services –Many more …

18. ViRBO Current Projects VxOware Autoplot Time Series Server

19. VxOware Notes: http://vxoware.org Implementation: http://virbo.org/metahttp://vxoware.org A tool for metadata management

20. VxOware For all aspects of managing XML-based scientific metadata User accounts with different privileges Edit/submit metadata via browser and with command line tools Queries of many types Federations Comment, Link, and Tag metadata Revision history Transforms on query output

21. Autoplot [http://autoplot.org] A browser for data on the web