Speaker
Description
The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) is the next-generation ground-based observatory for very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. The observatory will produce large volumes of scientific data, requiring a distributed computing infrastructure capable of supporting data processing, storage, and analysis for a geographically distributed scientific community.
The CTAO computing model relies on a network of four partner-operated data centers that collectively support the full data lifecycle, from data ingestion and processing to archival storage and user analysis. In this context, INFN contributes through the Frascati Data Center, named CIDC (CTAO Italian Data Center), operated in collaboration with the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF). CIDC provides storage and computing services fully integrated within the CTAO distributed infrastructure and serves as a key node for orchestrating distributed scientific workflows.
This contribution presents the architecture, services, and operational model of the CIDC. It highlights the storage infrastructure based on dCache, the orchestration of services via Kubernetes, and workload management with HTCondor. Emphasis is given to operational challenges, including service deployment, resource management, reliability, and the coordination required to maintain seamless integration with the CTAO distributed computing environment, providing a practical perspective on running a critical data center for an international observatory.