Established by AAL in 2017, Astronomy Data and Computing Services (ADACS) is as a national initiative created for the benefit of all Australian-based astronomers, with the aim to assist in maximising their scientific return from data and computing infrastructure via training, support and expertise.
The mission of ADACS is to provide astronomy-focused trainings in software development, data management, High Performance Computing (HPC) and advanced data analysis to Australian astronomers, to optimise the usage of, and increase value from, existing infrastructure. ADACS also aims to create/enhance astronomy data portals to facilitate the management, sharing and reuse of data via collaboration and/or partnership with national eResearch providers to help coordinate and maximise the computing and storage resources available to astronomers.
The current ADACS services contain three service components (SC):
SC1: Training, which aims to provide expert training and support in software development, data management and HPC.
SC2: National support, the key service here is data and computing expert services, which aims to embed data and computing experts in astronomy research team(s) to solve their data and computing challenges. The tasks ranged from cleaning up astronomy data, to simplifying access to HPC, optimising data pipelines or other activities specified by astronomers.
SC3: Access to national resources, which aims to ensure that sufficient storage and computing resources are available to Australian-based astronomers.
In March 2019, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ADACS team assisted Swinburne University of Technology to develop and release their Symptom Tracker website: beatcovid19now.org. Soon after this, the Symptom Tracker was also released as an app. The Symptom Tracker is a system that allows users to log their health via a set of survey questions, and may help track the spread of COVID-19.
ADACS is funded under the NCRIS Program via AAL and is delivered jointly by Swinburne University of Technology and Curtin University.