The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) is an
internationally known centre of excellence for research in astronomy,
astrophysics and related areas. It has a faculty of 14 astronomers and
many research students and post-doctoral fellows. Research in various
branches of theoretical astrophysics, observational astronomy and
instrumentation development are carried out in IUCAA. The Centre has more
than 80 visiting associates from universities and colleges who spend
significant periods of time in IUCAA, participating in the research and
developmental activities.
IUCAA has very well developed infrastructure and one of its high points is
the state-of-the-art computer centre. This has about 50 sophisticated work
stations and more than a hundred PCs for numerical computation, image
processing, visualization and other computer applications. The computers
are linked together by a fibre optic network. IUCAA is one of the
important nodes of ERNET and is linked by three independent 2MBPS line to
other nodes, and thus has high speed connectivity to research
establishments spread all over India and the world.
The computer centre at IUCAA has a data centre which was developed in
situ, and also houses mirrors of very large astronomical databases and
scientific literature. The academics at IUCAA and the computer centre
staff are very skilled in the use and development of databases. IUCAA is
now in the process of setting up a 2m optical telescope facility located
about a 100 kms from Pune which will begin to generate data early in 2002.
J.V. Narlikar : Professor J.V. Narlikar is a distinguished astrophysicist
and cosmologist of great international repute. He has made seminal
contributions to these subjects. After spending many years at the
University of Cambridge, England and the Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research, Mumbai, Professor J.V. Narlikar moved to Pune to set up IUCAA of
which he has been the Director since its founding in 1988. Professor
Narlikar has made important contributions to the planning and setting up
of institutions, observatories and computing facilities. He has
contributed immensely to the spread of research and teaching in astronomy
and astrophysics in India. He is known for his involvement with the
popularization of science in India and abroad.
Ajit Kembhavi : Professor Ajit Kembhavi is well known for his
contributions to theoretical astrophysics and observational astronomy.
After spending many years abroad and at the Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research, Mumbai, he moved to Pune along with Professor Narlikar for the
setting up of IUCAA. Professor Kembhavi has been responsible for the
planning and development of the IUCAA computer centre and computer
network, which is recognized as one of the best in the country. He is an
expert in the use of computers for varied applications including data
analysis and image processing. He has developed data centres and has been
responsible for setting up the ERNET node at IUCAA.
Sarah Ponrathnam : Ms Sarah Ponrathnam is in-charge of the computer
systems and network in IUCAA. She is a trained computer scientist with
immense experience in computer programmes, software development, systems
management and the setting up of networks and communication links. She has
worked with a whole range of computer hardware, operating systems and
applications. She has developed software for the management and use of
large astronomical databases.
Profile of Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd.
Persistent Systems Private Limited (http://www.persistent.co.in) is an
11-year old 350-person software development company located in Pune.
Persistent Systems specializes in developing data infrastructure software
and has developed such software for companies including Microsoft,
Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, Informix, i2 Technologies, Engage
Technologies etc. More specifically, Persistent Systems has developed
data management components such as bit-vector indexes, query optimizers,
ETL Tools, OLAP Tools etc. Persistent Systems' expertise in development
of data management software would be beneficial to the development of
data management software for astronomy databases.
Persistent Systems proposes to contribute a team of four software
developers at no cost to the Virtual Observatory project. As a Company,
Persistent Systems has the expertise to develop and project manage
software teams that would make a significant contribution to the project.
Profiles of some of the key individuals with data management experience:
Anand Deshpande: founder and Managing Director of Persistent Systems did
his B. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, did
his M. S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Indiana University,
Bloomington where he worked on implementations for nested relational
databases.. After a short stint in Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo
Alto, California, he returned to India to establish Persistent Systems.
Over the last 11 years Dr. Deshpande has been active in the database
community in India.
Shridhar Shukla: He did his B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT,
Bombay in 1983, M.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech in 1985 and
Ph.D. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University in 1990. He
worked as Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at
the Naval Post Graduate School, Monterey California until April 1995 when
he returned to India. Shridhar is involved in Workflow, Distributed
Computing and Directory Services projects at PSPL.
T. M. Vijayaraman: He did an M.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Madras in
1976 and then joined National Centre for Software Development and
Computing Techniques (NCSDCT) at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
(TIFR), Mumbai. Vijay worked in the Database Division of National Centre
for Software Technology (NCST), Mumbai when NCSDCT became NCST an
autonmous centre in 1986. He was a visitor to PSPL from 1997 April till he
joined PSPL in October 1998. His areas of interests and work experience
are in databases and object oriented systems
A. Balachandran: He did his B. E. from Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore in 1982 and his Ph.D. from IIT, Bombay in 1992. He worked with
ORG Systems, Baroda and TRDDC before joining PSPL in 1994. Bala
specializes in Database implementations, optimization, compiler
implementations.