1. The Virtual Solar Observatory – An Operational Resource for Heliophysics Informatics Frank Hill & The VSO Team

2. The VSO Team Rick Bogart Alisdair Davey Joe Gurman Frank Hill Joe Hourclé Piet Martens Kevin Reardon Igor Suárez-Solá George Dimitoglou Karen Tian Steve Wampler Keiji Yoshimura

3. Many VxOs Virtual observatories are popular. Night-time: IVOA, NVO, etc. going to VAO Solar: VSO Heliospheric: VHO Space Physics: VSPO Magnetospheric (2): VMO

4. VSO History First concept: Whole sun catalog (Fleck, Bentley) 1995-1997 Unsuccessful proposal efforts 1999-2001 NASA funded in 2001 to replace the GFSC SDAC Initial development 2001-2003 Operational version 1.0 released in 2004 Now at version 1.4

5. Design Requirements Distributed Search for and access multiple missions/observatories/wavelengths without intimate knowledge of the dataorganization (e.g. by physical observable and/or mission/instrument) Provide access to analysis software, instrumentdescriptions, &c. that enable use in scientific research Given the funding level, had to draw a “small box” around a small set of attributes useful for doing science

6. The original small box

7. VSO design

8. Essential technical features SOAP (simple object access protocol) Rapid prototyping Central registry of data provider holdings Replication of registry Simple data model Proxies for providers without data bases API, especially for IDL –Perl with SOAP:Lite –Java using Axis –C or C++ using gSOAP –Plus a WSDL document describing the API Three main nodes (GSFC, MSU, NSO)

9. What VSO does not provide Data mining (knowledge discovery) Remote processing: left for EGSO, CoSEC, but still missing Grid computing (as opposed to data grids) Access control (ever) –We wanted only to be in the business of helping data providers to give data away, not preventing its access

10. Data Sets MLSO RHESSI Yohkoh Digitized plates since 1915 GOES-12 SOLIS, FTS, O-SPAN, GONG Nancay, Pic Du Midi SOHO, TRACE, STEREO, Hinode MDI, GONG, Mt. Wilson, TON COMING SOON: SDO 59 instruments, 27 observatories, 14 archives

11. Interface

14. Data return page

15. Shopping Cart Carts are permanently stored, retrievable, and citable – searches can be replicated.

16. API Provides link between VSO and other systems: IDL/SolarSoft, COSEC, EGSO, HelioScope, AstroGrid, Aladin, VO. (But AstroGrid has just been cut)

17. New developments Currently in development –Additional catalogs (e.g. filaments) –Improved data return page for large data sets Future –Spatial location search (non-full disk images) –SDO –Better integration of data return –Interoperability with other VxOs and distributed analysis systems when they are available Always adding data sets

18. Operational experience Uptake by established senior staff is slow to non-existent Greater usage by young scientists Approximately 50 searches per day

19. Lessons Learned Design for easy maintenance You won’t have full funding forever Keep the central logic as simple as possible Handle special cases as wrappers around the problem component Your data model will change Be careful about outthinking yourself

20. URLS http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/vso/ http://vso.nso.edu/ http://vso.stanford.edu/