The Common Archive Observation Model: Inside the Data Centre

The Common Archive Observation Model (CAOM) is used as the core data model for all data holdings at the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC): 12 million data products spanning 20 collections and including images, spectra, cubes, time series, and catalogues. The CADC supports both in-house and external data engineering efforts by providing client tools and operating a CAOM observation repository service where data engineers have permission to create, update, and delete observation metadata. CAOM supports anonymous access for public data and authenticated access to proprietary metadata and data. The content is loosely coupled to data storage and delivery system. In addition to the CADC AdvancedSearch (web portal), CAOM also supports International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) services and data models to provide an end-to-end solution for data discovery and data access. CAOM is an open source model and open source codebase that is evolving along with the demands of both data variety and the needs of science users, science teams, and data centre operations.