The Messenger - No. 153 - September 2013 - ESPRESSO and ESO Technical Archives Overview

Oct 3, 2026

The Messenger No. 153 (September 2013) presents research and operational updates alongside an in-depth account of ESO technical documentation management. It traces how ESO archives evolved from paper-based technical records and document lists into electronic, intranet-accessible systems. The text explains why performance, access reliability, and configuration control were insufficient for growing observatory needs and large projects such as the ELT. It then describes evaluations of PDM and drawing management tools, collaboration lessons from CERN’s EDMS, and ESO’s decision process leading to the Kronodoc-based PDM approach for coherent archiving and access.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages48

Reading Time2 h 1 min

AccessFree to download

Overview of ESO Technical Archives

Migration from Paper to Electronic Archives

Limitations of Search, Access, and Configuration Control

Search for a New Archiving System

Learning from CERN EDMS

Comparing EDMS and Kronodoc for ESO Needs

The Messenger No. 153 – September 2013 ESPRESSO HARPS observation of the Venus transit Spectroscopy of the Magellanic Stream Science w ith ALMA Band 11 Telescopes and Instrumentation The ESO Product Data Management System —A New Home for ESO’s Technical Documents Maximilian Kraus 1 Roberto Tamai 1 Paul Jolley 1 Guy Hess 1 1 ESO Originally the technical archives at ESO grew organically and lacked a single coherent storage and access system. A search for a powerful product data management (PDM) system to unify the document archives of observatory, telescope and instrument technical material was initiated. After a careful assessment of the possible systems, it was decided to implement the Kronodoc system and its recent introduction as the ESO PDM system is described. Technical archives at ESO Over the years several tools have been introduced and used for the archiving and sharing of the ESO documents that staff, contractors and consortium partners produce and store for technical products and projects related to telescopes and instrumentation. This hybrid approach has worked well for most of the project teams, but the overall availability and control of the documents was not optimal. There has also been a central archive, called the Technical Archive, which developed from the documentation system set up for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) project and was located at ESO Headquarters in Garching. The VLT archive was originally planned for printed documents and drawings on paper, and was controlled using document lists. On Paranal a separate archive with a copy of the documents from Garching was set up. In 2003 this paper-based Technical Archive (see Figure 1) was migrated to an electronic archive. New documents were only accepted as electronic files, and were accessible to ESO internal users on the intranet. The printed documents produced earlier and stored were scanned on demand and also made available on the intranet. In 2009, because of the urgent need for office space, the Technical Archive rooms were needed and all the paper documents were scanned by a specialised contractor and thereafter only stored electronically. Staff at the La Silla Paranal Observatory had, in principle, access to this archive through the intranet. However, on account of a shortage of network bandwidth and speed, the search and download performance was not considered good enough. At the observatories technicians did not always have the documents available when they were needed, and problems remained in maintaining the documentation set in the event of changes or upgrades. Over the years, and especially with the advent of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E ELT) project, the need for a centralised archive for technical documentation became more and more evident. In addition, modern features like remote access, configuration control of documents and release work flows were necessary to support such a large and complex project efficiently. It was therefore decided to search fora replacement for the archiving systems. Search for a new archiving system Initially the search for an archiving system concentrated on a drawing management system, because it was perceived that drawing sets, with their parts lists and structures, are very complex to handle, and “normal” documents (for example, specifications) should be more straightforward to store and access. Several commercial systems were examined, but, after a detailed investigation, in each case a number of missing features or functions were identified and the candidate systems were considered unsuitable for the ESO research environment. Contact with colleagues at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) was established and visits were arranged to learn first-hand from their experience. Many years ago CERN introduced their Equipment Data Management Service (EDMS1) system. After years of development and adaptation, EDMS has become a powerful tool and is in

FAQs

Why did ESO pursue a new product data management system for technical documents?

ESO needed better overall availability and control, along with modern capabilities such as remote access, configuration control, and release workflows for large telescope and instrumentation projects.

What problems persisted with the existing Technical Archive approach?

Network bandwidth constraints reduced search and download performance, technicians sometimes lacked documents when needed, and documentation sets were hard to maintain through changes or upgrades.

How did CERN influence ESO’s archiving system decision?

ESO established contact with CERN, learned from CERN’s EDMS configuration and workflows, and recognized that research environments required significant adaptation beyond standard industry-focused commercial systems.

Oct 3, 2026

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