Canada Explores New Frontiers In Astroinformatics 39
An anonymous reader writes "The number of scientific instruments available to astronomy researchers for gathering data has grown significantly in recent years, leading to unprecedented amounts of information that requires vast storage and processing capabilities. Canadian researchers are finding a way around this problem (PDF) with a new solution that combines the best of grid and cloud computing, allowing them to more efficiently reach their research goals."
We just need to call it . . . (Score:2)
Re:We just need to call it . . . (Score:5, Funny)
You're just jealous that us Canadians have managed to find new and interesting ways to butcher the English language while ya'll just drop letters n shorten words.
Re:We just need to call it . . . (Score:4, Informative)
You're just jealous that us Canadians have managed to find new and interesting ways to butcher the English language while ya'll just drop letters n shorten words.
Colour me impressed, eh!
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Plus, at the start, where it reads "We detail the significance of the emerging field of astroinformatics to the next decade of Canadian astronomy"
How many decades is a "Canadian astronomy decade" in SI units?
Careful; if you die in Canada, you die in real life too.
The best of grid and cloud computing (Score:2)
"Well, Gromit, that sounds like A Grand Day Out! Whoops! The grid and the cloud have The Wrong Trousers!"
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Favorite part in all those films: shot of Gromit reading a book entitled "Electronics for Dogs".
What does it have to do with this story though?
Yes, but... (Score:2)
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Yes.
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Scaling up to Porn (Score:2)
The "enormous storage and bandwidth demands of porn" are manageable situations.
The enormous discharge of porn -- that's a real problem.
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The data challenges in astrophysics over the next 10 years are, together with particle physics (LHC/CERN), one of the few fields that might compare to the needs of porn.
For example, I'm working on LOFAR, we currently have a data rate of just over 200 Gbit/s and could be going as high as 1440 Gbit/s in the next couple of years. This is not just for a few seconds, like most particle experiments, but this will be 24/7 from March 2011. Our archive will store only scientific results, but still about 5 PB a year.
A GOOD use for "cloud" (Score:4)
THIS is a good use for "cloud" computing. Doing something that desktop computers or even individual large scale computers can't do on their own. A much more legitimate use than storing your documents and family photos on servers that belong to companies that may or may not honour their promises.
"cloud" is still just an irritating buzzword though.
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In my experience neither GRID nor Cloud computing is a good fit for these things, mostly because the data handling is very bandwidth/storage intensive and requires usually a very specialized software stack.
On a generic GRID or Cloud solution these are usually not available or easy to install/run/debug.
We are trying to get our data and software on GRID and Cloud solutions because it would indeed help us in processing our data, but it's been a real struggle and until now with only limited success.
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In my experience neither GRID nor Cloud computing is a good fit for these things, mostly because the data handling is very bandwidth/storage intensive and requires usually a very specialized software stack.
On a generic GRID or Cloud solution these are usually not available or easy to install/run/debug.
It doesn't have to be that way.
http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
http://nebula.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
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THIS is a good use for "cloud" computing
I'd have thought that was a little beneath astrophysics.
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Considering how rural most observatories are, I don't see how they could have enough bandwidth to stream that amo
Astroinformatics ? (Score:3)
Well I guess they could have used the term "Astrometrics" but Seven (of Nine) had patented that already...
Astroinformatics != Astrometrics (Score:4, Informative)
Astrometrics has to do with precise measurements of the celestial objects.
Astroinformatics has to do with the data systems used to store & process astronomy data.
(I'm a member of AGU's Earth and Space Science Informatics group, but we don't really deal with the nighttime folks; all of my data's solar)
canadians are well poised for this frontier (Score:3)
familiar as they are with large mostly empty frigidly cold spaces
Re:canadians are well poised for this frontier (Score:4, Informative)
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Just like the Avro Arrow they'll get great ideas...
Ah, the Avro Arrow, the world's first sentient aircraft.
PDF (Score:2)
OK I know no one read the article so I thought I would point out it a bit funny that the summary either cleverly or accidentally made a good pun on "PDF" (One being Portable Document Format and the other Probability Density Function):
"Canadian researchers are finding a way around this problem (PDF) with a new solution that combines the best of grid and cloud computing, allowing them to more efficiently reach their research goals.""
AND
"However, much more useful than a single scalar-valued redshift, is the a