Scientists fire up world's biggest computing grid

 

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Posted on 6 Oct 2008 at 12:21

The world's largest computing grid is now ready to help process the millions of gigabytes of scientific data being generated by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle beam accelerator at Cern.

Dubbed the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, the global super-grid combines the power of more than 140 computer centres from 33 countries to analyse and manage more than 15 million gigabytes of LHC data every year.

To cope with these huge volumes of data dedicated optical fibre networks have been installed between Cern in Geneva, to eleven large tier-one computer centres in Europe, North America and Asia. From these, data is dispatched to more than 140 tier-two centres around the world.

"Our ability to manage data at this scale is the product of several years of intense testing," said Ian Bird, leader of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid project.

"Today's result demonstrates the excellent and successful collaboration we have enjoyed with countries all over the world. Without these international partnerships, such an achievement would be impossible," he added.

Michael Ernst, director of Brookhaven National Laboratory's tier-one computing centre reckons that when the LHC starts running at full speed, it will produce enough data to fill about six CDs per second.

"As the first point of contact for LHC data in the United States, the computing centres at Brookhaven and Fermilab are responsible for storing and distributing a great amount of this data for use by scientists around the country," he said."

"We've spent years ramping up to this point, and now, we're excited to help uncover some of the numerous secrets nature is still hiding from us."

From the US alone 15 universities and three US Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories across 11 states have contributed computing power to the project.

The grid will provide 7,000 scientists around the world to analyse LHC data, explained Glen Crawford of the High Energy Physics program in DOE's Office of Science. DOE and the National Science Foundation support contributions to the LHC and to the computing and networking infrastructures that are an integral part of the project.

"Particle physics projects such as the LHC have been a driving force for the development of worldwide computing grids," said Ed Seidel, director of the National Science Foundation's Office of Cyberinfrastructure.

"The benefits from these grids are now being reaped in areas as diverse as mathematical modelling and drug discovery."

Author: Robert Jaques