D Sarkar¹*, Shikha Srivastava², S Padmini², A Jain², N Chouhan¹ and Anita Behere²

¹strophysical Sciences Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai, India
²Electronics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai, India

*Corresponding Author: D Sarkar, Astrophysical Sciences Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai, India.

Received: May 10, 2021; Published: June 25, 2021

Abstract

Data explosion is the present-day challenge that all communities are facing. Scientific Experiments contribute to a large extent to this data generation process. Space and ground-based multi- messenger astronomical experiments generate high-speed data which needs to be archived and analyzed. The Major challenges faced by many of these experiments are remote location, low bandwidth, poor network connectivity, remote operation of the telescope, high data rate, varied data from different subsystems and, the delay between acquisition and analysis. One such category of a scientific experiment is ground-based gamma-ray telescopes built to detect Cerenkov radiation generated by the interaction of the earth's atmosphere and gamma rays from different astronomical sources. The Major Atmospheric Cerenkov Experiment (MACE) is a 21m diameter ground-based high-energy gamma-ray telescope set up by BARC at Hanle (32.7◦ N, 78.9◦ E, 4270 m asl) in the Ladakh region of North India. The telescope consists of various subsystems that generate data at different rates. The archiving system has to handle this varied data rate, providing sufficient read-write speed for real-time analysis. The camera and data acquisition system generates maximum data at an estimated rate of 1kHz with an average throughput of ~20 MB/sec. This rate may increase with the increase of hit pixels leading to the generation of ~500GB of data per observational night. The storage of data and subsequent analysis requires robust and fault-tolerant data archiving software. In this paper, we describe the challenges faced in designing the archival software. We present a detailed software architecture, design, implementation, and testing of the Data Archival System (DArS) Software for the MACE Telescope as a solution to overcome the challenges. In the light of the MACE Telescope, we have proposed a generic software design for archiving software for systems with similar functional requirements.

Keywords: Gamma-ray Astronomy; Data Archival; Software Design; Design Patterns; Multithreading

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Citation

Citation: D Sarkar., et al. “A Generic High Data Rate Archiving Software Solution: In Context of an Astronomy Experiment". Acta Scientific Computer Sciences 3.7 (2021): 72-82.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 D Sarkar., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.