Science Data Production At Eso: Strategy, Plans And Lessons Learned

ESO aims at supporting the production of science grade data products for all of its Paranal instruments. This serves the dual purpose of facilitating the immediate exploitation of the data by the respective PIs, as well as the longer term one by the community at large through the ESO Science Archive Facility. The production of science grade data products requires an integrated approach to science and calibration observations and the development of software to process and calibrate the raw data. Here we present ESO's strategy to complement the in-house generation of data products with contributions returned by our users. The most relevant lessons we have learned in the process are discussed, as well.