HELIO
Heliophysics Integrated Observatory
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Implementation

HELIO is being implemented with a service-oriented architecture – this basically means that capabilities that are required are split into a number of separate services. In principle, the services can be grouped into two areas: search for interesting events and phenomena; and identify, locate and retrieve observations.

The first of these is quite difficult to quantify – what information is required and how it will be used depends on the science problem being addressed. HELIO is therefore creating a set of services that we believe will provide the types of capability that might be needed; these can be combined together using the workflow tool deployed by HELIOTaverna.

The Heliophysics Event Catalogue and Heliophysics Feature Catalogue facilitate searches on events and features throughout the heliosphere and contain that have been recognized by semi-automated techniques. Because some occurrences are quite subtle and cannot easily be detected, the Metadata Evaluation Service allows the user to manipulate time series data and search for events; a similar capability will be provided for image data.

In order to understand the temporal and spatial relationship between phenomena and events observed in different parts of the Solar System, the ability to run models is provided; this is just one of a number of processing capabilities that can be provided. Quick-look information, combining inputs from several sources, will be generated by the Context Service and present them as a means of helping the user to decide which events are most interesting and worth pursuing.

In comparison to looking for interesting events, once the times, locations and types of observation required have been determined the task of matching these to data is relatively straightforward. The Instrument Capabilities Service and Instrument Location Service, together with Observation Coverage Service allow the user needs know whether suitable observations were made at the required location at the desired time. The Data Provider Access Service is then used to find the required data, wherever and however they are stored and accessed in archive around the world.

Of course, the split between the tasks is not rigid. As part of the task of determining whether it is worth pursuing a particular event, a user is interested in the quality of observations available. Also, a user may have already made certain decisions about what they need based on other criteria; the design of HELIO allows them to use services and they jump into workflows at any point.

A Semantic Mapping Service is used to manage differences in the ways that the communities describe their data. Storage and Processing services are also available; authorization to use these services is managed by another service. All services are described in a the HELIO Registry Service.

  Table of HELIO Services
Service Name Purpose
   Search Metadata
Heliophysics Event Catalogue (HEC) Maintain and provide access to existing event data from all domains
Heliophysics Feature Catalogue (HFC) Maintain and provide access to existing feature data from all domains
MetaData Evaluation Service (MDES) Allows the user to create an auxiliary event list based on a newly-derived parameter, etc.
Context Service
(CXS)
Provide context information to help the user make a selection
   Review suitable observations
Instrument Capabilities Service (ICS) Match required observation type to one or more instruments (each part of an observatory)
Instrument Location Service (ILS) Determine the location of an instrument (part of an observatory) at a specified time
Observation Coverage Service (OCS) Provide information on whether an instrument was making suitable observations at a specified time
   Locate and Retrieve the Data
Data Provider Access Service (DPAS) Provide integrated access to data archives in all domains no matter how the data are stored or accessed
   Enabling Services
HELIO Registry Service
(HRS)
Maintain and provide access to a registry that describes all the services available to HELIO
Community Interaction Service (CIS) Manages interactions with the community, including authentication and usage statistics
Processing Service Support processing on demand
Storage Service Provide storage for user information
Ancillary Information Service (AIS) Provide integrated access to external resources that do not conform to HELIO interface standards
Coordinate Transformation Service (CTS) Translated between the different coordinate systems used by the communities
Semantic Mapping Service
(SMS)
Maps terms used in the metadata from the different communities
HELIO Monitoring Service
(HMS)
Keeps track of the status and performance of the services that the HRS knows about
Resource Usage Service
(RUS)
Keeps track of usage of HELIO so that the project can provide statistics to users, providers, etc.