Data

The astrophysical ESFRI projects will generate rich and complex, multi-dimensional datasets, and the exploitation of this unique combination of astronomy "Big Data" requires a common data infrastructure for data discovery , access and interoperability. ASTERICS aims to maximise software re-use and technology co-development for the robust, scalable and flexible handling and exploitation of the huge data streams and distributed petascale database systems associated with the ESFRI facilities - identifying best practice, defining open standards, design patterns and benchmarks, generating prototypes, constructing use-cases, and optimising frameworks and software libraries in an open innovation environment. The Virtual Observatory (VO) has been incredibly successful in integrating distributed infrastructures into one single virtual astronomy facility - the diversity of the various multi-messenger ESFRI facilities represent the obvious next step forwards. By ensuring that the ESFRI telescope products are openly accessible via the VO framework. ASTERICS wants to adapt the VO framework and tools to the ESFRI project needs, gathering requirements from the community and making the data interoperable in a homogeneous environment, enabling discovery and re-usage by the entire astronomical community and accessibility via a set of common tools and standards.