The Data Flow, from Observations to the Archive: Simulating the Case of TNG

The telescopes of the new generation allow an archive to be built as a section of data management; nevertheless, careful planning is needed and data handling needs to be designed together with the control system of the telescope itself, both for space-borne and for ground-based facilities. Simulations are essential to understand how observations will be archived, and to build and test an archiving system capable of dealing efficiently with the expected data flow.The TNG (Telescopio Nazionale Galileo) will be one of the first ground-based observing facilities where archiving of both technical and scientific data will be made directly at the telescope as a natural extension of the data handling chain. The results obtained testing the prototype implementation of the archive system at the TNG with a simulated data flow will be shown.