Just getting a nice talk from Jim Gray on the implementation of the SkyServer database. The main SkyServer site is at http://skyserver.sdss.org/en/. Jim's own website for this project is at http://research.microsoft.com/~gray/SDSS/default.htm.
Interestingly enough, this resource itself is not in the NSDL, although it has an amazing collection of Astronomy educational materials. At least there are several entries in the NSDL that reference the SkyServer, including a Whiteboard report with a title that looks like it will take you to the SkyServer (it's the URL of the site), but actually takes you to a long Whiteboard report.
One of the interesting things about this project is that they are logging all the 15 million SQL queries they've received from the public in a database and making that database available. In fact, almost everything about the project and data is publicly and easily available in a form that can be easily queried (using SQL) by anyone.
This is a model we should definitely consider for the Data Warehouse.
Posted by Dean at July 28, 2003 05:06 PM