The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Transfer Infrastructure

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has been active for approximately 15 years as of this writing. SDSS continues to produce large amounts of data, effectively daily. SDSS needs an effective system for data transfer and management that can operate essentially free of human intervention. In 2008, with the commencement of the third phase of SDSS, SDSS-III, new needs and opportunities motivated a fresh look at the data transfer infrastructure. We have constructed and are releasing a Python package, transfer, that contains all the automation needed for daily data transfer operations. This package has been tested and used successfully for several years. Significant portions of this code will continue to be used as SDSS transitions to its fourth phase, SDSS-IV.