Oral Abstract

Oral Contribution (O7.7) Luisa Arrabito (LUPM, CNRS-IN2P3)

Theme: Telescope operations and scheduling: from classical to autonomous

A DIRAC based prototype for the Cherenkov Telescope Array data management, processing and simulations

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation instrument in the field of very high energy gamma-ray astronomy. It will be composed of two arrays of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes, located at La Palma (Spain) and Paranal (Chile). The construction of CTA has just started with the installation of the first telescope on site at La Palma. The scientific operations should begin in 2022 for a duration of about 30 years. The overall amount of data produced during these operations is of about 27 PB per year. The associated computing power for data processing and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations is of the order of hundreds of millions of CPU HS06 hours per year.
In order to cope with these high computing requirements, we have developed a production system prototype based on the DIRAC framework, that we have intensively exploited during the past 6 years to handle massive MC simulations on the grid needed for the CTA design and prototyping phases.
In this contribution we present the different DIRAC systems in use in our prototype for the workload and data management as well as a high-level system that we have recently developed to further automatize the execution of complex workflows in a fully data-driven manner.