2007/11/13 by E. Sutorius, Johann Bryant, Sutorius, Eckhard +9
Computer Science · Decision Sciences · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Computational Physics and Python Applications #Distributed and Parallel Computing Systems #FOS: Physical sciences #Scientific Computing and Data Management
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0711.2042
openalex publication_date 2007/11/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
One of the major challenges providing large databases like the WFCAM Science Archive (WSA) is to minimize ingest times for pixel/image metadata and catalogue data. In this article we describe how the pipeline processed data are ingested into the database as the first stage in building a release database which will be succeeded by advanced processing (source merging, seaming, detection quality flagging etc.). To accomplish the ingestion procedure as fast as possible we use a mixed Python/C++ environment and run the required tasks in a simple parallel modus operandi where the data are split into daily chunks and then processed on different computers. The created data files can be ingested into the database immediately as they are available. This flexible way of handling the data allows the most usage of the available CPUs as the comparison with sequential processing shows.