Euro-VO 

The European Virtual Observatory ( Euro-VO) is an integrated and coordinated program designed to provide the European astronomical community with tools, systems, research support, and data interoperability standards necessary to enable astronomers simplified access to the information they need to complete their research. The idea of the Euro-VO is to make it feel as if all the astronomical data and tools are available on the astronomers desktop, even though they are actually located on systems spread out over the whole of Europe and even the rest of the world. 

Euro-VO is conceived as having three "arms", each of which is a meant as a virtual organisation with a variety of partners. The first is the VO Facility Centre (VOFC), which concentrates on support of the user community, and training and dissemination. The second is the Data Centre Alliance (DCA) which co-ordinates the efforts of organisations around Europe which need to deploy VO services, tools, and technologies, and shares best practice. The third arm is the VO Technology Centre (VOTC), whose aim is to co-ordinate the work of organisations who are developing the backbone technology, responding to the needs of the VOFC and DCA, as well as the astronomy community in general. The VOTECH project was the first project meant to embody the spirit of the VOTC, and as such was responsible for completing the design work and feasibility studies on the backbone software components that will make the Euro-VO possible. 

For more information about Euro-VO overall, see the Euro-VO homepage and especially this introductory explanation, and this summary of the three arms.

Related Projects and links

  • Virtual Observatory Facility Centre (VOFC). This is an organisation that provides the Euro-VO with a centralised registry for resources, standards and certification mechanisms as well as community support for VO technology take-up and dissemination and scientific program support using VO technologies and resources. It is led by ESO and ESA in partnership.
  • Virtual Observatory Technology Centre (VOTC). This is a partnership of organisations and projects collaborating to design and build new technology and tools for Euro-VO. The VOTECH project was the first implementation of this concept, but its work continues through a variety of funding sources, including the AIDA project (see below). The VOTC has been led by the UK, through the AstroGrid consortium (see below).
  • Data Centre Alliance (DCA). The DCA is an alliance of data centre communities represented at a national level. The DCA coordinates and assists European Data Centres to take up VO standards, share best practice for data providers, consolidate operational requirements for VO-enabled tools and systems and enable the identification and promotion of scientific requirements from programs of strategic national interest that require VO technologies and services. The DCA has been led by CDS in Strasbourg, and has been funded by the EU project VO-DCA.
  • AstroGrid. A UK funded program that has built both a suite of technical software for data centres and VO projects, and a suite of desktop applications and related web services for use by astronomers. The VOExplorer application is particularly useful for astronomers as a tool for finding and utilizing the myriad of services available on the VO.  AstroGrid also built the VO infrastructure in the UK which includes registries, data access, data storage, and security services deployed at a number of UK institutions. The funded project finishes in December 2009, but is being continued as an open source project, the AstroGrid Software Foundation.
  • Astronomical Infrastructure for Data Access (AIDA). EuroVO-AIDA aims at unifying the digital data collections of European astronomy, integrating their access mechanisms with evolving e-technologies, and enhancing the science extracted from these datasets. The EuroVO-AIDA project builds on the VOTECH and VO-DCA projects, leading the transition of Euro-VO into an operational phase. As well as deployment work, it contains "Joint Research Activities" which continue the work of the VOTC.
  • International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA). The International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) was formed in June 2002 with a mission to "facilitate the international coordination and collaboration necessary for the development and deployment of the tools, systems and organizational structures necessary to enable the international utilization of astronomical archives as an integrated and interoperating virtual observatory."  The work of the IVOA focuses on the development of standards that enable ubiquitous sharing of information, data, and services between disparate international institutions.  Staff from VO projects around the world join in a number of Working Groups aimed at developing a complete set of required standards. Twice yearly "interoperability workshops" are held to take forward this programme of work. The work is overseen by an Executive Committee made of senior representatives from each national VO project.  
     

 


VOTECH website is hosted at the Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh  -  last updated: 09-Nov-2009