To meet the expectations of the science community, and the delivery dates of the instruments, we have adopted a phased, incremental approach with annual VDFS software releases [v1 at end Q4'03 when WFCAM is ready for commissioning, through v2,v3, v4 when VISTA is ready for commissioning, and finally in Q2'08 v5 released 18 months after VISTA is surveying when VISTA processing will have been shaken down and no further development is envisaged -- see 7.4.2 Phases and 7.4.3 Milestones below for more detail]. From Q3'08 onwards only routine operations and software maintenance is envisaged. The funded Phase A VDFS proposal allowed us to study and define the detailed science requirements, and dates for their delivery, the work needed to deliver these, and manpower requirements from the bottom level up. The resulting Work Package Breakdown and staff costs (by quarter) are available at Appendix A.4, and the hardware requirements by workpackage and quarter are available at Appendix B.4.
In the sections below we summarise the Phases (7.4.2), Milestones (7.4.3), Organisations (7.4.4), Project Management (7.4.5) , and Total Costs (7.4.6).
Here we indicate the phasing of deliveries adopted, with a summary of the rationale,
The first three deliveries (v1, and annual developmental updates as v2 & v3) of the VDFS system will operate on WFCAM data from UKIRT, which acts as a test bed for VISTA data, as VISTA will not become available until Q4 2006. As each new developmental update is delivered we will attempt to process all extant WFCAM data as quickly as possible (<1 month) to help check the robustness of the system at VISTA data rates.
The fourth delivery (v4) will be the first to operate on actual VISTA data during VISTA instrument Commissioning and shakedown in Chile, and after an eighteen month shakedown period on actual VISTA data (during which sufficient data volume will be handled to enable the functionality to be checked and, where necessary modified) the system will be ready to move to a Routine Operations phase for both WFCAM and VISTA data. At the end of the shake down phase a final (v5) VDFS delivery will be made, incorporating all the lessons learnt with real VISTA data. This will be the version which routine operations will run with.
V4 includes the ESO deliverables which are designated v4(ESO deliverables) to distinguish them from those for the UK which are designated v4(UK).
This phase begins 18 months after VISTA begins to survey, and includes processing both WFCAM and VISTA data. The anticipated operating lifetime of WFCAM is between 10 and 15 years, and that of VISTA between 15 and 25 years. Funding for this phase include software maintenance is not currently sought but will be £485k/yr from Q3'08 (at current staff rates).
The key milestones in the programme to support the VISTA data flow during the three year period April 2004 to March 2007 are listed in Milestones.
The Pipeline work, including the deliverables to ESO, is the responsibility of the Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU) who have a long record of dealing with processing of surveys. The Science Archive work is the responsibility of the Wide Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) Edinburgh who have a long record dealing with survey databases, notably the Super Cosmos Sky Survey and the SDSS. The personnel at both organisation have the appropriate experience and expertise for the work, as explained in detail in the original VDFS application for Phase A.
The Management, reporting and advising structure adopted is outlined in the VDFS Management structure diagram below.
The Management group (Project Leader supported by the Management team) consists of
| Management Group role |
Name |
Affiliation |
Related Roles |
| Project Leader |
Jim Emerson |
QMUL |
VISTA Consortium Director |
| co-I |
Richard McMahon |
Cambridge |
Astrogid co-I |
| co-I |
Andy Lawrence |
Edinburgh |
Astrogrid-PI |
| Coordination with VISTA camera |
Malcolm Stewart |
UK ATC |
VISTA Camera Software manager |
| CASU Manager |
Mike Irwin |
Cambridge |
|
| WFAU Manager |
Peredur Williams |
Edinburgh |
The management group deals with work breakdown structures, project schedules including delivery milestones, assignment of staff to work packages, testing procedures, quality control of the software, risk registers, etc. To ensure that the schedule is met it agrees quarterly what tasks must be completed in the following quarter, and what specific deliverables are required. It balances the work and skill loads amongst the available staff effort resource with the required work and the local managers then accept an achievable set of deliverables for the end of the quarter.
Within each work centre (CASU in Cambridge and WFAU in Edinburgh) fortnightly/weekly progress meeting are held by the groups, and the Minutes and Actions copied to the management group. (The project leader attends the local meeting in one of these locations when possible). Any deviations from key task scheduled dates must be agreed with the VDFS PL in advance, and the VDFS PL must be immediately informed of any local changes to key personnel or resources that may affect the project.
At the end of each month both CASU and WFAU provide the VDFS PL with monthly progress reports (detailing significant achievements or failures) and updated tasks on their Project Plan stating actual start and finish dates and the percentage completion of each task. These are the discussed by the management group at a monthly meeting (telecon) at which the local managers report on progress, and issues that arise are resolved. This serves to review progress towards achieving the quarterly deliverables, and identify actions needed.
At the end of each quarter both CASU and WFAU provide the VDFS PL with quarterly reports on progress against the previous quarterly plan and detailed plans of work for the next quarter. These are discussed by the management group at a quarterly meeting (face to face) where the progress in finishing the agreed set of deliverables is assessed. This gives a quantitative measure of progress, which is available for subsequent use in reporting upwards on progress to oversight bodies. Any deliverables that may not been finished in the previous quarter become deliverables for the next quarter, and the other deliverables are again agreed, and the quarterly cycle then repeats. At this point a plan for the next quarter is agreed.
This structure has been reviewed by the Astrogrid Oversight Committee, on behalf of the Grid Steering Committee, and was agreed to be appropriate. The first quarter in which this structure was formally implemented, with all the associated record keeping was Q2'03. Our actual success in producing the Q2 deliverables will not be quantitatively known until end of Q2, but we are on target so far.
The Project Leader currently reports progress monthly to PPARC's VISTA Project Board (VPB), which is chaired by Richard Wade, who also chairs the Grid Steering Committee. A subgroup of the AstroGrid Oversight Committee, who reviewed the VDFS Management Structure, have suggested that PPARC ask us to report instead to a body more focused on software issues, and we are awaiting PPARC's response. VDFS also reports to GSC at its meetings. Our quarterly/monthly planning and reporting cycles with quantitative measures of outcome (a methodology approved of by the AGOC review), are expected to give VPB and GSC a clear measure of our progress.
We have already sought advice/input from the user community in drawing up our science requirements, and have agreed our plan for phased releases with them. To formalise continued involvement from those outside the projects (UKIDSS, WFCAM, VISTA) an Advisory Committee was envisaged with membership to include WFCAM/UKIDSS, VISTA and AstroGrid Project/Survey Scientists, and representatives from the VISTA Project Office and UKIRT (for contractual reasons ESO would not be formally represented in such a body). On the advice of AGOC we intend to widen the membership to include members of the community who are independent of any specific projects, and seek approval from AGOC for these extra members.