1. VO-DCA INAF participation Fabio Pasian – INAF/SI VO-DCA Board Meeting Strasbourg, 2-3 October 2006

2. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 20062 Summary VObs.it Census of Data Centres in VObs.it INAF areas of interest Areas of networking and collaboration DCA Internal Science Team Data Centres in non-partner countries

3. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 20063 VObs.it – Intro VObs.it, member of IVOA and Euro-VO, is the Italian contribution to the International Virtual Observatory collaboration. Wide experience in Grid: participation in Grid.it (WP to bring db’s and instrumentation under Grid infrastructure). Italian community’s own astronomy Grid project: DRACO (Italian Datagrid for Research in Astrophysics and Coordination with the virtual Observatory), a Grid project having the aim of “proving the feasibility of implementing a distributed multi-functional environment allowing the use of specialized (observational, computing, storage) Grid nodes” on a production Grid. From 2003 to 2005, the participation of Italy in VO activities has been delegated to DRACO. After the Euro-VO MoU was signed by INAF in October 2005, a separate VO project (VObs.it) was established and funded by INAF. The aim of the project is to coordinate within a unified approach the archives and databases developed by the Italian community. The first steps in this direction are to foster the adoption of IVOA standards,to participate in their definition, and to provide Grid-aware VO applications.

4. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 20064 VObs.it – Activity VObs.it is active in the following fields: Participation in the definition of standards (formats, protocols, vocabulary, etc.) within IVOA working groups: in particular, in close collaboration with CDS, there is leadership in the domain of semantics for the VO (UCDs); participation in Auth&Auth+VOSpace tiger team; Participation in the definition of an appropriate data model and an access protocol (SNAP) for theory data within the IVOA Theory Interest Group; In the framework of VO-Tech, the development of tools to compare of observational data with numerical simulations; Also within VO-Tech, studying components for the VO based on emergent technologies in the areas of the semantic web and ontologies (with CDS); VisIVO (Visualisation Interface to the Virtual Observatory), a visualisation and analysis software for astrophysical data, capable of handling both observational and theoretical data and fully interoperable in the VO framework (interfaced with Aladin, VizieR, Topcat, Astroneural, etc. through PLASTIC; Astroneural, a tool using advanced soft computing tools to extract information from large and multi-parametric (both astronomical and non astronomical) databases using mainly supervised and unsupervised neural methods.

5. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 20065 VObs.it – Management (1/2) VObs.it is coordinated by the Information Systems Unit (SI) of INAF. Other institutions are joining:  Participation of CINECA falls within the INAF- CINECA 2005-2007 agreement.  Participation of ASDC was recommended by the ASDC ASI-INAF Steering Committee “Operational Workshop”, OARoma M.Porzio, 21-22 November

6. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 20066 VObs.it – Management (2/2) Budget provided by INAF (yearly) Funds assigned in 2006 FY  corresponding to 3 FTE + travel + overhead  alas, manpower budget used to advance VO- Tech funds assignment  taking advantage of permanent INAF staff  taking advantage of non-permanent staff assigned to Grid and Data Processing projects

7. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 20067 Census of Data Centres in VObs.it INAF centre for Astronomical Archives (IA2), OATrieste: TNG (4 instruments, currently raw data only), Italian time on LBT, ITVO metadata ■ ■ VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey (VVDS) archive, INAF IASF-Milan ■ ASDC, the ASI Science Data Center Multi-Mission Archive (high-energy space missions, and scientific technical expertise for processing+interpretation) ■ DSS-II and GSC-II, both the databases and the all- sky uncompressed images, OATurin ■ BaSTI, db of theoretical stellar evolution predictions (population synthesis analysis), OATeramo ■

8. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 20068 BaSTI as INAF “fil rouge” in VO-DCA Existing, widely used database Theoretical data (WP4), needs to become VO-compliant (WP3), and its capabilities will be extended by exploiting the Grid (WP5) Scenario: VObs user connects to BaSTI, asks for model by set of parameters: model provided if available, local computation to interpolate between available models, Grid computing to build a new model

9. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 20069 INAF objectives integrate the currently-available archives (high-energy missions, TNG, GSC2 mirror, radio archives) within the Virtual Observatory framework allow the design archives under development (LBT, VST, SRT) to be VObs-compliant harmonise data retrieval and processing facilities for all archives, providing similar tools and functionalities integrate archives of theoretical and simulated data, currently under development in the framework of a national Theory VObs project, so as to make them available within the VObs infrastructure allow massive production of theoretical and simulated data, by providing access to parallel and distributed computing facilities, using the standard middleware currently in use for computational grids (e.g. EGEE)

10. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 200610 INAF areas of interest (1/4) WP3: Support to take-up and implementation of the VObs framework.  This task will organize the activities necessary to disseminate knowledge about interoperability standards and tools among European data centres, and to avoid duplication of efforts by instructing data centre managers and organizing the sharing of experience.  Implementation in involved Data Centres  WP 3-2: Technical feedback activities. It will organise feedback on implementation and new requirements, to be reported to VO-TECH and IVOA through PCT

11. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 200611 INAF areas of interest (2/4) WP4: Theory in VObs  The aim is to assess the inclusion of theory data and services in the VObs. TEG composed of recognized experts chosen among specialists who have started or intend to start to develop theoretical services for the VObs. Get technical input and refine requirements, with the Theory Interest Working Group of the IVOA, to which it is expected to provide leading-edge input, and with WP5 for aspects at the interface with the computational grid usage for massive computing. (SNAP)  Implementation in involved Data Centres

12. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 200612 INAF areas of interest (3/4) WP5: Coordination with computational grid projects (INAF is WP leader)  Achieve coordination between the VObs and the computational grid communities. Achieve the possibility for VObs users to exploit (through the Data Centres) the processing capabilities offered by computational Grids either nationally, or at the European level. Maximum priority will be given to coordination with EGEE.  Definition of standards in common between VO & Grid  Implementation in involved Data Centres  Knowledge acquisition; Coordination; Suggestions and guidelines; Dissemination

13. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 200613 INAF areas of interest (4/4) WP2: Definition of European DCA strategy  The aim is to define the detailed project programme, and to produce a medium term strategic plan for the Euro-VO Data Centre Alliance.  Goal: strategy for Euro-VO infrastructure  Goal: strategy for FP7 funding requests  Goal: long term plan for the Euro-VO Data Centres after the end of VO-DCA

14. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 200614 areas of networking and collaboration across WP’s: the “fil rouge” INAF nomination in DCA Internal Science Team: someone from theory (TBC) WP5 ↔ WP4 (close collaboration, WP4 provide requirements to WP5; feedback) WP5 ↔ VO-Tech DS3 (infrastructure) through WP3-2 and back Take-up and update of VO standards

15. VO-DCA Board MeetingStrasbourg, 2-3 October 200615 Data Centres in non-partner countries Ondrejov  4000 stellar spectra, mainly of hot stars (2m telescope, Reticon, since 1992). Preview pictures, automatic reduction pipeline.  echelle spectra (since 1990) in the future Kanzelhöhe  multispectral synoptic observations of the Sun (long-term Solar Surveillance Program)  which is our attitude wrt the solar community?