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Current and Future Developments within the Computing Group

As public sector and government agencies throughout Europe continue to expect greater productivity whilst reducing contributions to public-funded R&D, we've had to adapt our philosophy in order to deliver improved services at a vastly reduced cost.  In order to tackle this we're constantly reviewing and assessing how we can better meet the needs of our customers whilst achieving the business goals of the ING.  It's true to say that where possible we've capitalised on the reducing costs of certain technologies.  However, what we save on one hand is almost invariably reinvested into the business by assessing new technical advancements.  This has meant that in order to continue with our development programmes whilst experiencing these unprecedented levels of change we've had to seek more intelligent ways of working.  The Computing Group as been active using recognised standards to control the processes which deliver products which are fit for purpose whilst managing the inherent risks which are associated with change and innovation.  Our development projects make use of ING's resources to achieve business objectives and business benefits.

Software Development at the ING

The software development team at the ING uses state of the art technology to provide a software infrastructure that surpasses ING's business objectives.  The expertise that they posses embraces a wide range of programming skills involving the most effective development technologies, such as  Java, Corba, C++ and XML.  This, to a large extent, defines the high quality and reliability of the software products that have been developed and are currently under development.

Most of the software development is concerned with controlling systems such as mechanisms and motors.  However a significant amount of time is also invested in improving ING's instruments and improving the overall experience for the astronomers that visit the ING.

Below is a list of the current software development projects that are on-going within the Group :

A user MIMIC to provide the astronomer with a pictorial representation of the light path and its components within the adaptive optics system A java-based graphical user interface for finding appropriate guide stars and manipulating the autoguider probes A PC-based tip-tilt system that will control the laser guide star tip-tilt mirror for GLAS A laser traffic control system that will assist in implementing the priority rules for propagation of the laser when observing with a laser guide star Conversion of the WHT prime focus camera from 4MS to PLC control.  This is being carried out in conjunction with the Telescope and Instrument Group

Future projects will include but not be limited to :

Computer Infrastructure Development at the ING

To support the new applications that are being developed by the software engineers, the computer engineers are actively improving the computing infrastructure both at the ORM and at the SLO.  In 2007 an investment will be made to upgrade the ORM network infrastructure from 100Mbps to 1Gbps.  This will give ING's customers the ability to transfer images at faster rates between, for example, the data acquisition systems and personnel computers.  Similarly RedIRIS will be enhancing the bandwidth between Tenerife and Madrid to 622Mbps and the IAC will increase the bandwidth from 32Mbps to 10Gbps between La Palma and Tenerife.  This will provide superior Internet access which in turn will directly benefit ING's customers.

The Group continues to look for cost-effective ways to improve reliability of the systems that they provide as well as reducing time for recovery for equipment that has failed.  Some of the high-profile projects that are taking place within the Group includes:

The Computing Group visitors' notes for the ING can be found here.

In Summary

The future is bright and full of opportunities that are being grasped and assessed to determine their place within ING.  We continue to invest both wisely in our operational and development programmes and strive to deliver to our customers a long-term commitment in line with the customer service expectations that are demanded from ING's investors.  All this is successfully being undertaken whilst we experience hitherto unseen changes within the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes.