From nch@roe.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 18:30:06 2009 Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 14:39:07 +0100 (BST) From: Nigel Hambly To: WFCAM Science Archive Team -- Eckhard Sutorius , Mike Read , Mark Holliman , Nigel Hambly , Nicholas Cross , Rob Blake , Ross Collins Cc: CCs for WSA weekly meeting minutes distribution -- Andrew Lawrence , Andy Adamson , Jim Emerson , Malcolm Stewart , Lorenzo Rimoldini , Mike Irwin , Peredur Williams , Bob Mann , Stephen Warren Subject: WFAU VDFS Science Archive weekly project meeting minutes, 3/4/09 Minutes of WFAU VDFS Science Archive meeting: 3rd April 2009 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Present: NCH, ETWS, RSC, PMW, MAR, NJC Apologies: JPE, JMS, AL, RGM, RPB, MSH DoNM: 10am, Friday April 17th 2009 in the Vista Hut Actions discharged this week: ----------------------------- ACTION: NCH to assign U/08B/14 H2/K frames to the GPS in the WSA. Discharged ACTION: ALL to spend like there's no tomorrow Discharged; turns out we didn't get the IOU from STFC after all, but we spent a bit of money anyway. Actions partly discharged but continuing: ----------------------------------------- ACTION: ETWS to parse that latest keyword info into the VSA metadata schema files. Continues; ETWS noted that communications with CASU indicate that the VIRCam data FITS keys are yet to be finalised, but that the procedure for parsing a standard set into an SQL schema is set up and can be tested further in the meantime. Actions carried forward from 27/03/09 meeting: ---------------------------------------------- None this week Specific points and new actions: -------------------------------- Project management: The team filled in the progress chart for Q1, and PMW noted that we need to finalise the Q2 plan ACTION: PMW and NCH to meet Wed 2pm to finalise the Q2 plan We note that April 1 has come and gone, and still no grant announcement. Furthermore, no official statement as to the bridging grant April 1 '08 to March 31 '09, despite the ludicrous optimism of last week. WFCAM & VISTA updates: JAC weekly UKIDSS report noted that UKIDSS got weathered out in March: 5 hours out of 12 scheduled nights - bad luck; fingers crossed for better weather in April. Comments and issues arising from CASU fortnightly minutes: Following on from last week's query concerning possible alterations to CASU catalogue param #55, and MJI's suggested bodge "bumbits=mod(#55,1000.0), avcrap=#55/1000.0", WFAU's opinion (for what it's worth) is we'd prefer new information to get written in a new attribute so that new catalogues are at least backwards-compatible with old for param #55. Anyway, if CASU do go ahead with the mod, please tell us so that we can at least stick in "bumbits=mod(#55,1000.0)" at our end (so to speak). Networking: Nothing of note this week. WSA Operations: Unfortunate delay of a few days in getting DR5 out has been caused by one small cock-up and a number of big SQL Server optimisation issues. NCH, ETWS and RSC have been debugging the problems and we hope to close out release in the next few days. Hardware: Still awaiting on a final required quote for a new JBOD before placing the order with the most competitive (i.e. the usual supplier), so deployment of SDSS DR7 on a public server is stalled - shame. Software: RSC noted: "All 64-bit testing and necessary fixes to our code are now complete - the new systems software install is completely verified as working with our code on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. The necessary software changes will be released very soon before the branches diverge too much. This will allow operations to make use of khafre again straight away and then menkaure and the other curation servers can be upgraded to the latest systems software installation. This new release_10 branch of the software also contains many improvements based upon the latest DR5 operational experience, which are documented in the BranchNews page on trac." Now that all remaining compatibility issues with our own VDFS code and 64-bit linux have been sorted out, NJC noted that he can now do a bit of testing of handling of large tiles/mosaics in preparation for VISTA. MAR noted some work on the User Interface in preparation for UKIDSS DR5. Survey Data As noted above, DR5 is *nearly* ready for release, consisting of LAS, GCS and DXS. Non-survey Data Release: RSC noted that once UKIDSS DR5 is released, we should release the shallow (and possibly deep) private PI programme survey-like DBs for 08A asap in April. Astrogrid deployment & Data Analysis services: Nothing new this week. Miscellaneous: Nothing else this week. ============================================================= Nigel Hambly Tel: +44-131-668-8234 Institute for Astronomy Fax: +44-131-668-8416 School of Physics and Astronomy University of Edinburgh Email: nch@roe.ac.uk Royal Observatory Blackford Hill Edinburgh EH9 3HJ The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. =============================================================