From nch@roe.ac.uk Fri May 1 13:37:09 2009
Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 12:41:38 +0100 (BST)
From: Nigel Hambly <nch@roe.ac.uk>
To: WFCAM Science Archive Team -- Eckhard Sutorius <etws@roe.ac.uk>,
Mike Read <mar@roe.ac.uk>, Mark Holliman <msh@roe.ac.uk>,
Nigel Hambly <nch@roe.ac.uk>, Nicholas Cross <njc@roe.ac.uk>,
Rob Blake <rpb@roe.ac.uk>, Ross Collins <rsc@roe.ac.uk>
Cc: CCs for WSA weekly meeting minutes distribution -- Andrew Lawrence
<al@roe.ac.uk>, Andy Adamson <a.adamson@jach.hawaii.edu>,
Jim Emerson <j.p.emerson@qmul.ac.uk>, Malcolm Stewart <jms@roe.ac.uk>,
Lorenzo Rimoldini <lgr@roe.ac.uk>, Mike Irwin <mike@ast.cam.ac.uk>,
Peredur Williams <pmw@roe.ac.uk>, Bob Mann <rgm@roe.ac.uk>,
Stephen Warren <s.j.warren@ic.ac.uk>
Subject: WFAU VDFS Science Archive weekly project team meeting, 1/04/09
Minutes of WFAU VDFS Science Archive meeting: 1st May 2009
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Present: NCH, ETWS, NJC, RPB, MSH, PMW, RSC, MAR
Apologies: JPE, JMS, AL, RGM
DoNM: 10am, Friday May 8th 2009 in the Vista Hut
Actions discharged this week:
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ACTION: NJC to contact CASU regarding the deblending fix.
Discharged; thanks to JRL for the latest version of the source extraction
SW - ETWS has made a test installation and NJC is checking it over;
MJI will be sending script+details of the retrospective fix soon.
ACTION: NCH to look into possible DR4-DR5 frameset anomalies to
ensure no frame association bugs in CU7.
Discharged; NCH reckons that any remaining anomalies are due to retiling
of the LAS in the equatorial NGP strip, but there could be some
enhancements to CU7 that may help ...
Actions partly discharged but continuing:
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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 24/04/09 meeting:
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None this week
Specific points and new actions:
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Project management:
The team filled in the progress sheet for April.
WFCAM & VISTA updates:
NCH noted that the latest UKIRT Newsletter is out
http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/publications/newsletter/
and that this year's ROE Workshop (mid-September?) will celebrate
30 years of scientific success with UKIRT.
NCH has received an invitation to the May UKIRT Board meeting to
update on WFAU's WSA activities, and will be attending (May 21st).
Comments and issues arising from CASU fortnightly minutes:
No new minutes this week.
Networking:
Transfers from CASU await release of 09A data.
WSA Operations:
RPB noted that non-survey releases continue. All seven shallow surveys
that were pending have now been released. Deep surveys are continuing.
A strange memory allocation bug has slowed these down a little, though
RSC added a bugfix to try and work around that.
Hardware:
RPB reported that we're gradually wresting control of the archive
servers from ITSG:
"IT Support have changed root password on Djedefre. A helpdesk ticket is
in to change the rest. Watch this space.
A failed disk on Djedefre caused a degraded array. Replacement installed
and rebuilt once we were given the root password."
NCH and MSH have transfered the SSA source binaries to test performance
on the new clustered DB server ramesses (it could've been worse: we
might have called it Ozymandias - "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and
despair...")
RSC noted that a run of CU7 for a non-survey was running rather slowly
at the start of the week. RPB and NCH had a close look, and it seems
disk speed/IO may be sub-optimal on load server ahmose for some reason.
RPB will keep an eye on things...
Software:
ETWS noted:
- Finished the 3rd party software installation on all servers.
- Wrote a patch to help installation of CASU's cirdr code and installed
it for testing on djoser.
- Updated browser pages for new released non-surveys.
- Started updating LGR's SDSS photometry code to run under the new
installation.
RSC reported:
"Continuing to work on the changes to the code for VSA curation and will soon
create a dev_vsa branch for these changes. Have been helping RPB with
non-survey releases and providing some necessary quick fixes to the software
for the varied problems these present. Also involved with investigations
into problems with the latest PyFITS 2.x series release in regards to
compressed FITS files and possible slow disk write performance on the load
server."
NJC reported:
"I have been working on the paper about archiving synoptic data and
have sent a draft around to the WFAU team. I have been testing new a new
development branch with changes to the stacking and extraction and started
to test the new version of the CASU extraction code. I am also bug fixing
some parts of the synoptic pipeline where there have been problems for some
of the non-surveys."
MAR noted work on refactoring made SQL servlet to extend it to VISTA; and
testing the interface for the new nonSurvey releases prior to emailing PIs.
This threw up a few minor bugs which were fixed, though some of these fixes
then introduced another bug spotted by SJW. Hopefully all fixed now.
Survey Data
Nothing to report this week.
Non-survey Data Release:
Several 08A programme survey-like DBs released to PIs this week, thanks
to RPB, RSC and MAR.
Astrogrid deployment & Data Analysis services:
MSH reported back from the AG get-together in The Lakes. On June 15th,
a new release of the infrastructure software will take place; also
later in the summer there will be new implementations of Table Access
Protocol and secure conesearch in the DSA software.
Miscellaneous:
atishoo ... oink.
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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.
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