Enabling Distributed access to SDO Data with VSO

The Virtual Solar Observatory (VSO) and the Joint Science Operations Center (JSOC) have teamed up to create a global interface that manages the distribution of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) data. SDO provides unique challenges, in that it is expected to generate ~2TB of data per day. The standard distribution model applied to previous solar missions is not designed to cope with the high data volume that SDO will provide. Whereas previously, a request for a day’s worth of data from a remote site may have been easily handled, such SDO data requests cannot now be handled by a single site and indeed such queries are likely to be discouraged. The new design works around network bandwidth limitations and problems associated with the data volume itself and large user requests that could easily swamp a data node regardless of the network connectivity. In the implemented design, satellite sites, such as the Solar Data Analysis Center (SDAC), the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), National Solar Observatory (NSO), et cetera will be able not only to pull metadata and data from the JSOC site but also from each other. In addition to this, any of these sites is capable of serving data requests to the user community using the familiar VSO interfaces.