Long-term Management of 1000s of All-Sky Reference Data Sets Using the HiPS Network

Over the past few years the Hierarchical Progressive Survey (HiPS) has become a key method for the distribution of all -sky reference data. Today, HiPS represents about 100 TB of data, and is expected to double each year as the network of a dozen of HiPS providers including ESAC, JAXA, CADC and CDS grows. HiPS data sets are used by thousands of users per day through various HiPS aware clients: Aladin, MIZAR, Aladin Lite, and Aladin-Lite based ESASky and JUDO2. We expect that this technology will be one of the main methods for the distribution of surveys - images, catalogs and cubes - for the next decade. In this extremely fast growing environment, we will discuss why the HiPS network is an excellent candidate for long term management of all-sky reference data. We highlight how the intrinsic HiPS architecture based on the well known HEALPix geometry, a simple tile structure, straightforward distribution method based only on a basic HTTP server, and being standardised by IVOA, constitutes an extremely robust foundation for a system which will support all-sky data distribution for a long time.