1. Sky Survey Database Design National e-Science Centre Edinburgh 8 April 2003

2. Agenda 10.00 Start Welcome, introductions & goals – Bob Mann Sky survey databases – problems Introduction – Bob Mann Recent/current work in Edinburgh – Nigel Hambly Thoughts on spatial indexing – Clive Page, Bob Mann 12.30 Lunch Sky survey databases – solutions Oracle AstroGrid testbed – Ian Carney Discussion What to do, when and how? (15.00 Tea) 17.00 Close…beer?

3. Meeting goals Aid DBMS choice for new Edinburgh databases –WFCAM & VISTA Science Archives (WSA, VSA) –Use SQL Server, learn about DB2 & Oracle Investigate possibilities for collaboration in areas of mutual interest Investigate possibilities for collaboration in areas of mutual interest –Large, spatial, distributed databases –DBMS integration into web/Grid service framework

4. Why Astronomy Data? Why Astronomy Data? It has no commercial value –No privacy concerns –Can freely share results with others –Great for experimenting with algorithms It is real and well documented –High-dimensional data (with confidence intervals) –Spatial data –Temporal data Many different instruments from many different places and many different times Federation is a goal The questions are interesting –How did the universe form? There is a lot of it (petabytes) IRAS 100  ROSAT ~keV DSS Optical 2MASS 2  IRAS 25  NVSS 20cm WENSS 92cm GB 6cm Slide from Jim Gray (Microsoft Research)

5. Meeting goals (cont’d) Anything else? –What do our IBM & Oracle colleagues want: from today? from today? from interaction with astronomers? from interaction with astronomers?