Email: Address: Tel: Mobile:

ktn@star.le.ac.uk University of Leicester Dept of Physics and Astronomy University Road Leicester LE1 7RH 0116 223 1894 07721 926 461

Project Notes

AstroGrid as a project is evolving rapidly. Significant changes in funding mean that VO in the UK will be delivered in a wholly different manner to that originally envisioned; at this point the onus is on the Consortium members to deliver VO services of their own volition rather than as a centrally funded project. Over the course of AstroGrid I have given and listened to many talks and I have included here some that I hope the reader will find informative.

The first is an examination of what comprises a Virtual Observatory from the technical perspective and how AstroGrid rose to that challenge. The second shows how we verified that AstroGrid "does what it says on the tin". In the first 14 slides of the third, I reviewed AstroGrid from the perspective of similar sized commercial projects - we were not found lacking. The remainder of this talk is a review of AstroGrid-3 Cycle-1 just as we were being made aware of the hole in the STFC budget. It shows we were on target even if the money was about to run out. Next is "Entangled Data: Knowledge & Community making in E(Social) Science Final Data Report" from the Chimera Project. This analysed AstroGrid (SkyProject) alongside other eScience projects and drew some interesting conclusions, not least of which was that we were that extremely rare beast: a successful distributed project. Finally, I have included for completeness a formal review of the Euro-VO VO Technology Centre (VOTECH) project undertaken by Alex Szalay. VOTECH can be seen to have been very successful and I am pleased with our involvement in it.

1. AstroGrid Under the Hood
2. System testing and results
3. AstroGrid: How we compare against similar sized projects
4. Entangled Data: Chimera final report
5. VOTECH Review

Background

I am married with 2 daughters. I have worked in I.T. for the last 20-mumble years with organisations including the NHS, DEC, BT, CA, Amdahl and SESI as well as running my own product and freelance company for a few years before returning to full time employment. I am a firm believer in Occam's Razor and always using the right tool for the job. I am fascinated by all things computing, especially systems modelling using a "fly by wire" (declarative) paradigm. I also think we spend far too much time working not to enjoy it.

-- KeithNoddle