Decades of Transformation: Evolution of the NASA Astrophysics Data System's Infrastructure
Alberto Accomazzi

TL;DR
The paper chronicles the 30-year evolution of NASA's Astrophysics Data System, highlighting technological upgrades, integration of AI techniques, and future challenges in managing a comprehensive scientific digital library.
Contribution
It provides a detailed account of the system's technological transformation, including cloud migration and AI integration, offering insights into modern digital library development.
Findings
Shift to cloud-based microservices improved reliability and capabilities.
Incorporation of AI enhances search, metadata, and user engagement.
Future challenges include managing AI trustworthiness and interdisciplinary data.
Abstract
The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is the primary Digital Library portal for researchers in astronomy and astrophysics. Over the past 30 years, the ADS has gone from being an astronomy-focused bibliographic database to an open digital library system supporting research in space and (soon) earth sciences. This paper describes the evolution of the ADS system, its capabilities, and the technological infrastructure underpinning it. We give an overview of the ADS's original architecture, constructed primarily around simple database models. This bespoke system allowed for the efficient indexing of metadata and citations, the digitization and archival of full-text articles, and the rapid development of discipline-specific capabilities running on commodity hardware. The move towards a cloud-based microservices architecture and an open-source search engine in the late 2010s marked a…
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Taxonomy
TopicsBig Data and Business Intelligence · Data Quality and Management · Scientific Computing and Data Management
