Designing an Observatory Asset Management System for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope
Project Site: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)
Mentor: Blaise C. Kuo Tiong
Project Abstract:
The Canada-France- Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) is interested in developing an asset management system to improve inventory tracking of servers, computers, and peripherals at the Waimea headquarters and the summit of Mauna Kea. Currently, the location of these assets is managed by online wiki pages. As a result of having multiple wiki pages, reliable information can sometimes be inconsistent. The development of an asset management system is expected to reduce time searching for an item, decrease high replacement costs, and improve accountability of assets. Overall, the goals are to improve user experience, develop a method to quickly deploy the application, and to create a cohesive tracking system for CFHT. The system utilizes the application Snipe-IT, an open-source asset management system that uses a graphical user interface (GUI) to populate and manage CFHT’s asset database. A web server was configured to host the application, which in turn allows the application to be accessed through a web browser, such as Google Chrome, from a smartphone, laptop, etc. Due to the simple configuration of the system, installation of extra packages/services are not necessary on the client’s end in order to use the application. Finally, quick response (QR) codes were implemented as asset labels to allow database-access through QR code scanning applications with a smartphone or tablet. Depending on the system’s functionality and usability, the asset management system could potentially expand to other groups at CFHT and track assets besides computing systems.