  The ALMA Observation Support Tool (OST) is an ALMA simulator which is
interacted with solely via a standard web browser. It is aimed at users who may
or may not be experts in interferometry, or those that do not wish to
familarise themselves with the simulation components of a data reduction
package. It has been designed to offer full imaging simulation capability for
an arbitrary ALMA observation while maintaining the accessibility of other
online tools such as the ALMA Sensitivity Calculator. Simulation jobs are
defined by selecting and entering options on a standard web form. The user can
specify the standard parameters that would need to be considered for an ALMA
observation (e.g. pointing direction, frequency set up, duration), and there is
also the option to upload arbitrary sky models in FITS format. Once submitted,
jobs are sequentially processed by a remote server running a CASA-based
back-end system. The user is notified by email when the job is complete, and
directed to a standard web page which contains the results of the simulation
and a range of downloadable data products. The system is currently hosted by
the UK ALMA Regional Centre, and can be accessed by directing a web browser to
http://almaost.jb.man.ac.uk.
