About AENEAS

Project Overview

The AENEAS (Advanced European Network of E-infrastructures for Astronomy with the SKA) project is a 3 year initiative funded by the Horizon 2020 program of the European Commission to develop a science-driven, functional design for a distributed, federated European Science Data Centre (ESDC) to support the astronomical community once the largest radio telescope in the world - the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) - becomes operational.

Context

AENEAS brings together the European research community to develop a detailed design for the scientific processing of data from the Square Kilometre Arra (SKA).  The complexity of the infrastructure  that can deal with the expected volumes of SKA data goes far beyond the current trends and technologies in radio astronomy, requiring innovative solutions for networking, access, processing and storage.

Impact

The impact of AENEAS goes far beyond the astronomy community engaged in the development of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Next to providing a blueprint for the European Science Data Center, a major node in the SKA Regional Centers, AENEAS will connect multiple national research networks and European-wide e-infrastructures to harness and leverage existing investments and boost further cooperation.

Project Goals

The ultimate objective of the AENEAS project is to develop a concept and design for a distributed, federated European Science Data Centre (ESDC) to support the astronomical community in achieving the scientific goals of the SKA. This design must include the functionality required by the scientific community to enable the extraction of SKA science and integrate the necessary underlying
infrastructure  to support that extraction.

Project Plan

AENEAS is divided over 6 main work packages. WP1 deals with the management of the AENEAS project. WP2 assesses the overall European landscape for the European Science Data Center. WP 3 and 4 encompass various aspects of the computing and networking components of the ESDC. WP5 and 6 ensure interoperability across the integrated infrastructure and e-infrastructure upon which the ESDC will be deployed.

Project Findings

Browse through detailed analysis of the compute, storage and networking requirements for the European Science Data Center (ESDC). The ESDC comprises multiple national science data centers expected to connect astronomers to SKA data. Our findings are organized in a series of reports that are publicly available to scientists, engineers, national and international funding bodies, Big Data industry players and other SKA stakeholders via this website.