Cloud access to interoperable IVOA-compliant VOSpace storage

TL;DR

This paper explores integrating IVOA-compliant VOSpace storage with cloud infrastructures to create a global, interoperable data management system for astronomy, combining standards with cloud efficiency.

Contribution

It demonstrates the feasibility of a hybrid cloud infrastructure that merges IVOA standards with federated cloud resources for astronomy data management.

Findings

Successful deployment of a pilot hybrid cloud infrastructure

Enhanced interoperability between VOSpace and federated clouds

Identified benefits and limitations of the hybrid approach

Abstract

Handling, processing and archiving the huge amount of data produced by the new generation of experiments and instruments in Astronomy and Astrophysics are among the more exciting challenges to address in designing the future data management infrastructures and computing services. We investigated the feasibility of a data management and computation infrastructure, available world-wide, with the aim of merging the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data management provided by IVOA standards with the efficiency and reliability of a cloud approach. Our work involved the Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomy Research (CANFAR) infrastructure and the European EGI federated cloud (EFC). We designed and deployed a pilot data management and computation infrastructure that provides IVOA-compliant VOSpace storage resources and wide access to interoperable federated clouds. In this paper, we detail the main user requirements covered, the technical choices and the implemented solutions and we describe the resulting Hybrid cloud Worldwide infrastructure, its benefits and limitations.