Largest telescope ever needs data management

IBM steps in to assist

IBM  today announced it will partner with Western Australia’s International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) on the technology needed to manage the vast amounts of data produced by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope project. When constructed, the SKA telescope will be one of the world’s largest scientific instruments.

This extremely powerful survey telescope, 50 times more sensitive than current instruments, will use approximately 3,600 antennas spread over thousands of kilometres to peer into deep space. The SKA will capture data on the evolution of galaxies, dark matter and energy, providing insight into the origins of the universe around 13 billion years ago.

According to Western Australian Minister for Commerce, Troy Buswell, once operational, the levels of data produced by the SKA will be bigger than any other research project in the world. “In its first hour alone, the SKA will generate more information than is currently held in the entire World Wide Web,” he explained.

ICRAR and IBM will collaborate to research and develop systems that transfer, manage, process and store this unprecedented amount of continuous and unstructured radio astronomical data. In doing so, they will push the boundaries of data management. SKA will require the computing power equivalent of a billion PCs and manage information flows of one Exabyte of data per day — the equivalent of one thousand million 1Gb memory sticks each day.

Managing Director of IBM Australia and New Zealand, Glen Boreham, said the company was keen to provide practical support to Australia’s scientific community and research efforts.

“IBM is delighted to be contributing to what will be one of the largest science instruments on the planet. The technical challenges presented by SKA’s computation and data requirements are exactly the sort of technology problems that IBM excels at solving,” Boreham said.