FTS as a part of the data movement pipeline for SKA

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a multi-purpose radio telescope that will play a major role in answering key questions in modern astrophysics and cosmology. Whilst the headquarters for this project is located at Jodrell Bank in the UK, the main telescope sites are in South Africa and Australia. The two telescope sites will produce approximately 700 PB of data per year, which will need to be moved for storage at one of the SKA regional centres, located in member countries around the world, before being accessed by scientists. It is evident that there will be several similarities in the computing requirements for the LHC and the SKA observatories, particularly in the challenges posed by moving large quantities of data around a global network. In this paper, we will discuss the usage of FTS by SKA SRCNet (SKA Regional Centre Network) and its ability to enable long-range data transfer across the developing SRCNet. We will also discuss some alterations to the FTS service hosted at STFC to better support SRCNet.