Canada Explores New Frontiers In Astroinformatics

An anonymous reader writes "The number of scientific instruments available to astronomy researchers for gathering data has grown significantly in recent years, leading to unprecedented amounts of information that requires vast storage and processing capabilities. Canadian researchers are finding a way around this problem (PDF) with a new solution that combines the best of grid and cloud computing, allowing them to more efficiently reach their research goals."

Comments

Re:We just need to call it . . .

[Monkeedude1212]

You're just jealous that us Canadians have managed to find new and interesting ways to butcher the English language while ya'll just drop letters n shorten words.

Re:We just need to call it . . .

[Tumbleweed]

You're just jealous that us Canadians have managed to find new and interesting ways to butcher the English language while ya'll just drop letters n shorten words.

Colour me impressed, eh!

Re:Scaling up to Porn

[Locke2005]

Note to self: buy stock in Kleenex corp.

A GOOD use for "cloud"

[syousef]

THIS is a good use for "cloud" computing. Doing something that desktop computers or even individual large scale computers can't do on their own. A much more legitimate use than storing your documents and family photos on servers that belong to companies that may or may not honour their promises.

"cloud" is still just an irritating buzzword though.

Re:A GOOD use for "cloud"

[RogerWilco]

In my experience neither GRID nor Cloud computing is a good fit for these things, mostly because the data handling is very bandwidth/storage intensive and requires usually a very specialized software stack.

On a generic GRID or Cloud solution these are usually not available or easy to install/run/debug.

We are trying to get our data and software on GRID and Cloud solutions because it would indeed help us in processing our data, but it's been a real struggle and until now with only limited success.

Astroinformatics ?

[rossdee]

Well I guess they could have used the term "Astrometrics" but Seven (of Nine) had patented that already...

canadians are well poised for this frontier

[circletimessquare]

familiar as they are with large mostly empty frigidly cold spaces

Re:canadians are well poised for this frontier

[SilverEyes]

It really isn't that cold in Canada where all the people live. The largest state in the U.S., much of Russia, Antarctica, Finland, etc. are all pretty much colder on a continual basis with more people than Canada. I think people think it's so cold here because we use metric (as opposed to the Americans) and that we complain so much more about it... (possibly from a strong UK cultural heritage?)

Re:canadians are well poised for this frontier

[Abstrackt]

Of course! Where else would we store the beer?

Astroinformatics != Astrometrics

[oneiros27]

Astrometrics has to do with precise measurements of the celestial objects.

Astroinformatics has to do with the data systems used to store & process astronomy data.

(I'm a member of AGU's Earth and Space Science Informatics group, but we don't really deal with the nighttime folks; all of my data's solar)