Abstract
The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) will build the most sensitive radio telescopes on Earth. To address fundamental questions in astrophysics, fundamental physics, and astrobiology, it will require processing and handling complex and extremely massive data close to the exascale, hence constituting a technological challenge for the next decade. Approximately 600 Peta-bytes (PB) of calibrated data will be delivered to the network of SKA Regional Centers (SRCs) worldwide. As a world-leading scientific instrument, SKAO aims to pursue the best practices in scientific methodology. Remarkably, it includes the reproducibility of its data as a metric of success. We present the Spanish prototype of an SRC (SPSRC), which supports preparatory scientific activities for the future SKA projects. These include science with SKA precursors and pathfinders while promoting Open Science practices as a way to enable scientific reproducibility. We describe the key developments and components of the SPSRC that align with these objectives. In particular, we describe the performed work on hardware and cloud computing infrastructure, science archive, software and services, user support and training, and collaboration with other SRCs. The resulting SPSRC platform is flexible enough to host heterogeneous projects while being scalable toward the demanding SKA requirements.
Highlights
The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) is an international effort to build the largest and most sensitive radio telescopes
With the aim to provide archive services that contribute to a better understanding of the data, we have studied how provenance data models can be applied to the SKA science data products and to the derived products that will be created at the SKA Regional Centers (SRCs)
Preparatory activities for the SRCs started in 2016 with the SRC Coordination Group, and they increased with the AENEAS and ERIDANUS projects
Summary
The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) is an international effort to build the largest and most sensitive radio telescopes. It is noteworthy that while the pace and the phase of the individual SRC developments in each country are different, in 2019, the Chinese SRC prototype was the first one to deploy dedicated infrastructure that was used to simulate SKA data transfer and processing.[14] The steering committee is coordinating these national initiatives to develop the first global network of SRC prototypes To this end, seven working groups were established, focused on the following areas: SRC network architecture, data logistics, operations, federated computing and data software services, SKA science archive, compute, and science user engagement.
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