Proceedings Article | 25 July 2024
I. Abu, F. Gianotti, M. Lodi, G. Malaspina, M. De Benedetto, F. Fiordoliva, M. Costi, G. Mancini, M. Sardo, M. Rosi, A. Bulgarelli, L. Castaldini, A. Tacchini, V. Conforti, A. Costa, V. Fioretti, S. Gallozzi, F. Lucarelli, K. Munari, N. Parmiggiani, V. Pastore, F. Russo, S. Scuderi, G. Tosti, M. Trifoglio
KEYWORDS: Printed circuit board testing, Telescopes, Data storage, Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, Data acquisition, Computing systems, Reliability, Observatories, Data transmission, Astronomy
The ASTRI (”Astrofisica con Specchi a Tecnologia Replicante Italiana”) program, led by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), is an international collaboration focused on developing and operating an array of nine 4-meter class, dual-mirror Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs). These telescopes are designed to detect gamma-ray radiation at energies above 1 TeV. The ASTRI Mini-Array is being constructed at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife, Canary Islands. To support the development, installation, and operation of the ASTRI Mini-Array, a dedicated on-site Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Infrastructure has been designed. This ICT infrastructure hosts the Computing System for the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) software, which monitors, controls, and acquires data from the ASTRI Mini-Array telescopes and associated auxiliary hardware. The deployment model for SCADA is based on a combination of containers, bare metal servers, and virtual machines, all of which communicate seamlessly. Containerization techniques, paired with advanced orchestration systems such as Kubernetes, enhance the system’s efficiency. In this paper, we detail the virtual and containerized environment system, which employs the concept of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in conjunction with a container orchestration system. IaC enhances portability, automation, agility, and version control, while the orchestration system automates deployment, scalability, load balancing, resource management, recovery, and container version management. Together, IaC and container orchestration significantly simplify the infrastructure and application management. IaC automates the provisioning of basic infrastructure, while container orchestration ensures that containerized applications run efficiently and reliably. This architecture allows us to manage the entire SCADA system with ease, enabling rapid deployment of the entire system—both the environment and applications—at the Teide Observatory or other test sites.
