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González-Riestra, R., Solano, E., García, J., Martínez, J., Montesinos, B., Rodríguez, F., Sanz, L., Talavera, A., de la Fuente, A. J., Ponz, J. D., Skillen, I., & Wamsteker, W. 2001, in ASP Conf. Ser., Vol. 238, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems X, eds. F. R. Harnden, Jr., F. A. Primini, & H. E. Payne (San Francisco: ASP), 156
INES: The Next Generation Astronomical Data Distribution System
R. González-Riestra, E. Solano, A. Talavera1,
F. Rodríguez, J. García, J. Martínez,
B. Montesinos, L. Sanz
Laboratorio de Astrofísica Espacial y Física Fundamental
(LAEFF), P.O. Box 50727, 28080 Madrid, Spain
A. de la Fuente, I. Skillen2, J. D. Ponz, W. Wamsteker
Villafranca Satellite Tracking Station (VILSPA), P.O. Box 50727, 28080 Madrid, Spain
Abstract:
The IUE Archive was the first astronomical archive to be made
accessible on-line, back in 1985, when the World Wide Web didn't even
exist. The archive stores
more than 110000 spectra which span nearly two decades of Ultraviolet
Astronomy. The IUE Newly Extracted Spectra System (INES), a complete
astronomical archive and its associated data distribution system, was
developed with the goal of delivering IUE data to the scientific community
in a simple and efficient form. Data distribution is structured into
three levels: a Principal Centre at
LAEFF
(Laboratory
for Space Astronomy and Theoretical Physics, owned by the Spanish National
Institute for Aerospace Technology) and its Mirror at
CADC,
a number of National Hosts (currently 22), and an unlimited number of end
users.
The INES Principal Centre can be reached at
http://ines.vilspa.esa.es.
Archives are essential components of all astronomical space
observatories. Their holdings are in most cases unique, and they allow the
re-use of the data for many different scientific purposes. Astronomical
space archives are excellent tools for the study of variable phenomena, and
provide reference information for the planning and calibration of new
missions. Moreover, archives are a precious source of data for many
didactic purposes.
From its beginning, the ESA-IUE project at VILSPA has made special efforts to
define the mission archive and to distribute data to the
scientific community worldwide. In 1985 the IUE ULDA (Uniform Low
Dispersion Archive) became the first on-line astronomical archive.
Taking advantage of the expertise gained with ULDA and the distribution
system for IUE Final Archive data, the ESA-IUE Observatory
began to develop INES in early 1997. INES is a complete astronomical
archive and the
associated mechanism for data distribution. Its goal is to make accessible the
complete dataset obtained by the International Ultraviolet Explorer during
nearly twenty years of operations to the scientific community in a simple,
user-friendly and efficient form (Wamsteker et al. 2000).
In early 1998, ESA decided to put an end to its involvement in the IUE
project, and to deliver the IUE archive to the scientific community. In May
1998 the Science Programme Committee of ESA selected LAEFF (Laboratory for
Space Astrophysics and Theoretical Physics, owned by the Spanish Institute
for Aerospace Technology INTA) to become the INES Principal Centre. During
the period January 1999-June 2000, ESA and LAEFF developed jointly the
``INES Transfer Programme'', after whose completion LAEFF assumed full
responsibility for the maintenance and development of the INES
system. Thus, in the coming years, LAEFF
will be the repository of the largest and
most complete set of data in the ultraviolet domain.
The INES system has the following design goals:
- to deliver fully calibrated data in a form that does not require a
detailed knowledge of the instrumental characteristics,
- to decrease the volume of information in the archive, excluding
intermediate products and technical information without direct relevance to
the user,
- to apply state-of-the-art technology in terms of data distribution
techniques, but minimizing the development effort by using tools already
available,
- to reduce the costs associated with the archive support.
The distribution system has a three-level structure to avoid single
points of failure in the system and to reduce the chances of ``network
bottlenecks'' impacting performance:
- A Principal Centre at LAEFF, with a Mirror Site at the
Canadian Astronomical Data Centre (CADC). Both sites contain the master
archive and provide the data not available at the National Hosts (high
resolution and spatially resolved low resolution data, see below). The
Principal Centre is responsible for new software releases and the update of
the catalogues.
- A number of National Hosts, containing the access and
publications catalogues and the full set of low resolution and re-binned
spectra. At the time of writing, INES is installed at the following
National Hosts:
Argentina,
Austria,
Belgium,
Brazil,
Canada,
China (P.R.)5,
ESO,
France,
Israel,
Italy,
Japan,
South Korea,
Mexico,
Morocco,
The Netherlands,
Poland,
Russia,
Spain,
Sweden,
Taiwan,
the United Kingdom
and the United States.
6
- an unlimited number of end users, who access the archive via the
WWW using any standard browser.
Figure 1:
Implementation Scheme of the INES System.
|
The INES archive contains the following set of IUE data:
- Low dispersion spectra, re-extracted from the IUE Final Archive files
with improved algorithms (Rodríguez-Pascual et al. 1999) (1.2GB),
- High dispersion spectra, re-binned to the low dispersion wavelength scale
(González-Riestra et al. 2000) (0.6GB),
- High dispersion spectra, with orders concatenated and correct
wavelength scale (Cassatella et al. 2000, González-Riestra et al. 2000)
(12.5GB).
- Low dispersion spatially-resolved spectra, as available in the IUE Final
Archive (16.8GB).
High dispersion and bi-dimensional spectra reside both at the Principal
Centre and its Mirror. Low dispersion and re-binned data are distributed to
all National Hosts. Requests for retrieval of the latter types of data
are resolved locally at the National Host, and requests for high dispersion
or bi-dimensional spectra are forwarded to the Principal Centre or its
Mirror, from where the data are delivered to the user in a transparent way.
All the data are delivered in FITS format and can be read into standard
image processing packages (e.g., MIDAS, IDL, IRAF) without
special-purpose software.
INES has been operational for three years now. The first release of the
system (INES 1.0) was installed in VILSPA in November 1997. INES 2.0, which
represented a major upgrade of the system, was installed in August 1999,
and distributed to the National Hosts in November of that year. INES 3.0
was installed for testing at the Spanish National Host in August 2000, and
is being distributed at the time of writing. The main functionalities of
this last release of the system are described by Solano et al. (2001). The
usage of the archive has increased substantially along the last year (see
Figure 2). The number of files retrieved from the Spanish
National Host and the Principal Centre was 26000 in 1999, growing up to
45000 in 2000. The total volume of data transferred increased from 2.3
to 6.0GB in the same period.
Figure 2:
Usage statistics of the INES Principal Centre and the Spanish
National Host in 2000.
|
References
Cassatella, A., Altamore, A., González-Riestra, R., Ponz,
J. D., Barbero, J., Talavera, A. & Wamsteker, W. 2000, A&AS, 141, 331
González-Riestra, R., Cassatella, A., Solano, E., Altamore, A. & Wamsteker, W. 2000,A&AS, 141, 343
Rodríguez-Pascual, P. M., González-Riestra, R.,
Schartel, N. & Wamsteker, W. 1999, A&AS, 139, 183
Solano, E., González-Riestra, R., Rodríguez, F.,
Talavera, A., de la Fuente, A., Skillen, I., Ponz,
J. D. & Wamsteker, W. 2001, this volume, 152
Wamsteker, W., Skillen, I., Ponz, J. D., de la Fuente, A.,
Barylak, M. & Yurrita, I. 2000, Ap&SS, 273, 155
Footnotes
- ... Talavera1
- Presently at the XMM Science Operations Centre, VILSPA
- ... Skillen2
- Presently at the Isaac Newton Group, La Palma
- ... (P.R.)5
- Local access only
- ...http://ines.stsci.edu/ines/.
6
-
The minimum hardware required for a National Host is: a server with
an Intel Pentium or similar CPU, 32MB RAM, 5-6GB hard disk, a permanent
Internet connection, and a CD-ROM reader.
The major software components used in the National Host
installation are (see Figure 1):
the Linux Operating System (the current installation has been tested in
RedHat Linux 6.2. and 7.0), PERL (version 5.005-03) together with the
Data Base Interface and Data
Base Driver modules, MySQL (version 3.22-32-1), CFITSIO, and PGPLOT (version 5.2.0).
© Copyright 2001 Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 390 Ashton Avenue, San Francisco, California 94112, USA
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