CERN Launches The Biggest Computing Grid In The World

Today, CERN launched the largest computing grid in the world which is destined to analyze the data coming from world’s biggest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The computing grid consists of more than 140 computers centers from around the world in order to be capable to analyze 15 million GB of LHC’s data.

A big contribution to CERN’s Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) is made by the United States which has “allocated” 15 universities and 3 Departments of Energy (DOE) from 11 states. In order to make things work, the US are using the Open Science Grid that already was coordinating the national computing infrastructure of science and from now it will coordinate WLCG’s data, and it will provide computing power for the LHC.

http://gallery.techarena.in/data/516...er-cern-01.jpg

The U.S. has been an essential partner in the development of the vast distributed computing system that will allow 7,000 scientists around the world to analyze LHC data, complementing its crucial contributions to the construction of the LHC,” says Glen Crawford from the DOE’s Office of Science where he is a member of the High Energy Physics program.

Open Science Grid members have put an incredible amount of time and effort in developing a nationwide computing system that is already at work supporting America’s 1,200 LHC physicists and their colleagues from other sciences,” says Ruth Porder, Open Science Grid’s executive-director from DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

It seems like particle physics projects are very important in developing better computing grids all around the world, not only in the U.S., but I will let Ed Seidel to explain it better - “particle physics projects such as the LHC have been a driving force for the development of worldwide computing grids.”

http://gallery.techarena.in/data/516...er-cern-02.jpg

“The benefits from these grids are now being reaped in areas as diverse as mathematical modeling and drug discovery,” added Mr. Seidel, the director of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure at the National Science Foundation.

World’s biggest computing grid is using dedicated optical fiber networks to send the data from LHC to 11 so-called Tier-1 computer centers in Asia, Europa, and North America. The latter includes New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. These two are very important as they distribute the data from CERN’s LHC to about 140 Tier-2 computing centers worldwide.


“Our ability to manage data at this scale is the product of several years of intense testing. 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,” says the leader of the WLCG project, Ian Bird.

“Grid computing allows university research groups at home and abroad to fully participate in the LHC project while fostering positive collaboration across different scientific departments on many campuses,” says Ken Bloom, manager of seven from the twelve Tier-2 computing centers in the U.S.

http://gallery.techarena.in/data/516...er-cern-03.jpg

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 centers at Brookhaven and Fermilab are responsible for storing and distributing a great amount of this data for use by scientists around the country. 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,” says Michael Ernst, director of the Tier-1 computing center from the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

All the data coming from the LHC will be examined by worldwide physicists including the United States, and they will be looking for “something” that could lead to important discoveries about the Universe. For the moment, there is only one problem - CERN has shut down the LHC due to serious problems caused by faulty connection between magnets.

devicedaily