AENEAS

AENEAS

Projects

Advanced European Network of E-infrastructures for Astronomy with the SKA​

The scientific potential of the forthcoming SKA radio telescope is simply unprecedented and represents one of the highest priorities for the international scientific community in the coming decade. By the same token, the large scale, rate, and complexity of data the SKA will generate present challenges in data management, computing, and networking that are similarly world-leading. Like the SKA itself, a coordinated, global effort will be required to solve these challenges and fully realize the ground-breaking scientific potential of the project (see www.skatelescope.org).

AENEAS (ID: 731016) is a 3-year project, started on the 1st of January 2017, that has been designed to address the Horizon 2020 Work Programme and Part A of the INFRASUPP-03-2016-2017 call “Research and Innovation Actions for International Co-operation on high-end e-infrastructure requirements” specifically supporting the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), an ESFRI Landmark Project.

Specific primary objectives of the AENEAS project are to:

  • Develop a concept and design for a distributed, federated European Science Data Centre (ESDC) to support the astronomical community in achieving the scientific goals of the SKA.
  • Engage with the science community to define requirements on the analysis capabilities of the ESDC.
  • Produce design and best practice recommendations and cost models for the networking, data transfer, storage, and the authentication and authorization infrastructure.
  • Address the challenges of moving the large volumes over global distances.
  • Establish the optimal technical solution for a highly distributed SKA Science Data Centre in Europe.
  • Estimate the level of resources required to establish an optimal European SKA Data Centre.
  • Establish the policy and governance framework.
  • Establish a plan for pan-European participation in the SKA science program, well beyond the current European SKA partner countries.

Based on the expertise of the AMIGA members in eScience, their participation in the design of the SKA Science Data Processor and their interest on making the SKA Regional Centres a reference in science methodology, AMIGA participates in three Work Packages (WP) of AENEAS project:

  • WP2: Development of ESDC Governance Structure and Business Models
  • WP3: Computing Requirements
  • WP5: Access and Knowledge Creation

More info on https://www.aeneas2020.eu/

This project is funded under the call INFRASUPP-03-2016 and brings together all of the European member states currently formally part of the SKA collaboration as well as potential future EU SKA national partners, the SKA Organisation itself, and a larger group of international partners including the SKA site host countries: ASTRON (NL), University of Cambridge (UK), University of Manchester (UK), INAF (IT), Chalmers University (SE), MPIfR Bonn (DE), IAA-CSIC (ES), Universitario de Santiago (PT), Universite de Geneve (CH), Observatoire de Sauverny (CH), STFC (UK), NWO (NL), SKAO, SKA SA (ZA), University of Cape Town (ZA), SKA AU – CSIRO), (AU), JIVE (EU), ILT (EU), EGI (EU), GÉANT (EU), RDA (EU).