Speaker
Description
The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) is the next-generation
very-high energy gamma-ray observatory currently under construction.
With tens of telescopes planned at two sites in both hemispheres, it
will provide a significant improvement over current instruments in
sensitivity, energy range, and resolution. CTAO will generate tens of
petabytes per year, with a first analysis of every night of observations
made available within a day at the latest.
The bulk of the CTAO data will be processed by the Data Processing and
Preservation System (DPPS), yielding high-level data ready for
elaboration by astronomers. DPPS will leverage high-throughput computing
and big data storage distributed over six data centers, orchestrated by
a suite of central services. Assembly, Integration, and Verification
(AIV) is a key element of the DPPS development lifecycle, integrating
its subsystems into a cohesive system, and verifying that it meets its
requirements and quality standards.
DPPS AIV embraces the synergy of dynamic Continuous Delivery workflow
with Systems Engineering, enabling rapid development while producing an
exhaustive project documentation trail. DPPS AIV is closely aligned with
the DPPS deployment strategy, built upon DevOps principles and
containerized cloud-native deployments. It allows fully reproducible
deployments and execution of automated Test Cases traced to DPPS Use
Cases and requirements in well-defined local development environments,
in ephemeral environments of GitLab continuous integration pipelines,
and in persistent GitOps-defined staging, pre-production, and production
deployments.
This contribution introduces the DPPS AIV strategy, processes, and
tools, highlighting the challenges of carrying out requirement
verification and quality assurance of a complex distributed data
processing and preservation system, and the solutions we adopted to
address these challenges while achieving several first releases of DPPS.
We will also discuss the challenges and opportunities created for
software quality assurance and requirement verification by growing
uptake of generative AI tools in the software development.
| Affiliation of the submitter | EPFL, CTAO |
|---|---|
| Attendance | in-person |
