Proposed new subcategory in "Data Management": "Tech"

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#1

At the Brokers workshop in April 2021, we had a productive discussion about the use of various back-end database technologies (e.g. SQL, No-SQL, Graph, Object) which various brokers have adopted for their query engines. Amongst various topics we discussed use of these technologies in facilitating flexible (especially spatially indexed) queries, and deployment challenges in cloud-based infrastructures. Although there are plenty of generic discussion forums geared towards these themes, few, if any, provide an astronomy oriented approach. Hence I propose a sub-category under “Data Management” named “Tech”. The category is initially aimed at broker developers, but of course we welcome contributors from anyone in the Rubin community.

Under the “About” section, I propose:

A forum for discussing back-end database technology implementations, initially aimed at broker developers, relating to curation and querying of Rubin data.

#2

If the goal of this subforum is to discuss brokers and database technology, I’d suggest calling it “database” or “broker development”: just “tech” is far too generic.

#3

These kinds of technical discussions between brokers developers, Rubin staff, and the science community (everyone and anyone, really) would be very appropriate for the Alerts & Brokers category.

Alternatively to making a new category, perhaps we should just update the “About the Alerts & Brokers Category” topic for that category to make this clearer?

Discussion of making it a new category is still open though.

#4

Many thanks for the helpful suggestions! Agreed - maybe “Tech” is just too generic. Happy to have it under the Alerts & Brokers category. Looks like we haven’t been very busy there, so even a simple topic under there won’t exactly get lost! At least initially. Is it possible to have a “Database” or “Databases” or “Database Technologies” tag or subtopic? Don’t worry if not.

#5

And thank YOU for using the Community Forum @genghisken!! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

“Alerts & Brokers” is already a sub-category (of Science) and we don’t have sub-sub-categories, but all technical discussions like you described could carried out by starting new topics in the Alerts & Brokers category.

You’re right that tags are also useful for this situation. I only found a few relevant existing tags (alert, brokers, and sql) but more can easily be made. I can see that your user account, @genghisken, has a trust level of three which means you can create new tags.

#6

Ah - that’s great! Many thanks @MelissaGraham! Looking forward to the day we can have some discussions in person again!

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