Introduction to CERN and Grid Computing

Dr. Wolfgang von RüdenCERN, Geneva

HP ProCurve eventCERN, 20 February 2008

CERN stands for over 50 years of…• fundamental research and discoveries• technological innovation• training and education• bringing the world together

1954 Rebuilding EuropeFirst meeting of the

CERN Council

1980 East meets WestVisit of a delegation from Beijing

2004 Global CollaborationThe Large Hadron Collider involves

over 80 countries

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CERN Governance

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Twenty Member States:Austria Belgium Bulgaria Czech RepublicDenmark Finland France GermanyGreeceHungary Italy NetherlandsNorway Poland Portugal Slovak RepublicSpain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom

Plus eight Observer States: European Commission, India, Israel, Japan, Russian Federation, Turkey, UNESCO and USA

Budget: (2008) 1154 MCHF (715 MEUR)

Personnel: 2600 Staff, 700 Fellows and Associates, 8000 Users

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Fundamental physics questions:• Why do particles have mass?

– Newton could not explain it - and neither can we…• What is 96% of the Universe made of?

– We only know 4% of it!• Why is there no antimatter left in the Universe?

– Nature should be symmetrical • What was matter like during the first second of the Universe’s

life, right after the "Big Bang"?– A journey towards the beginning of the Universe will gives us deeper

insight

CERN is building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), due to start up in summer 2008, which should give us some answers by looking at microscopic big

bangs to understand the fundamental laws of nature20 February 2008 4Wolfgang von Rüden, CERN

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LEPLHC

15 billion years

1 billion years

300’000 years3 min1 s10-10 s10-34 s

CERN’s Tools – Innovation at all levels• The world’s most powerful accelerator: LHC

– A 27 km long tunnel filled with high-tech instruments– Equipped with thousands of superconducting magnets– Accelerates particles to energies never obtained before – Produces particle collisions creating microscopic “big bangs”

• Very large sophisticated detectors– Four experiments each the size of a cathedral– Hundred million measurement channels each– Data acquisition systems treating Petabytes per second

• Top level computing to distribute and analyse the data– A Computing Grid linking ~200 computer centres around the globe– Sufficient computing power and storage to handle 15 Petabytes per

year, making them available to thousands of physicists for analysis

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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel

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The “ATLAS” experiment (under construction)

7000 tons, 150 million sensors, 1 petabyte/s

A Grid with over 200 computer centres

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How does it work?

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Proton acceleration and collision

• Protons are accelerated by several machines up to their final energy (7+7 TeV)

• Head-on collisions are produced right in the centre of a detector, which records the new particle being produced

• Such collisions take place 40 million times per second, day and night, for about 100 days per year

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CERN pushes innovation in many areas

• Pushing the limits of what is possible – Magnetic fields, vacuum, precision alignment, cryogenics– Transport, displacement of very heavy equipment– High density radiation-tolerant silicon detectors– Large scale industrial control systems– Electronics and computing systems– Project management and coordination

• Advanced computing projects– LHC Computing Grid – a world-wide collaboration– EGEE – a global Grid infrastructure for many sciences– openlab – a CERN-industry partnership to push IT innovation

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Essential ingredients for innovation

• A concrete project with ambitious goals and a deadline• Highly competent and motivated teams in all domains and at

all levels• Open collaboration with competent partners

– Prestigious universities and research institutes– Industrial partners for key technologies– CERN openlab in the IT domain

• Learn from others, share your results freely

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• A science – industry partnership to drive R&D and innovation

• Started in 2002, now in second round, future under preparation

Motto: “you make it – we break it”

• Evaluates state-of-the-art technologies in a very complex environment and improves them

• Test in a research environment today what will be used in industry tomorrow

• Leads to better products and methods

Large network behaviour project

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• A high-performance network is an essential part of CERN’s computing infrastructure

• The project goal is to understand the behaviour of large computer networks (10’000+ nodes) in High Performance Computing or large Campus installations to be able to:– Detect traffic anomalies in the system– Be able to perform trend analysis– Automatically take counter measures – Provide post-mortem analysis facilities

ProCurve @ CERN today

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5412 32

5406 78

Ten gigabit ports 780

3500-24 238

3500-48 640(~250 in CC, 10G)

3400-24 420

3400-48 520Number of Gigabit user ports ~70’000Note: The CORE is based on Force-10 routers

Project scheme

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Sampled Flow info& other sources

Collector(s) Storage Analysis

CERN – HP Collaboration• HP has been an openlab partner from the beginning in 2002• HP ProCurve joined in 2007• Long-term commitment and partnership with detailed projects

adapted to changing needs and evolution• Very successful collaboration for many years in multiple

domains

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CERN – a unique organisation

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The fastest racetrack on the planet…

Trillions of protons will race around the 27km ring in opposite directions over 11,000 times a second,

travelling at 99.999999991 per cent the speed of light.20 February 2008

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The emptiest space in the solar system…

To accelerate protons to almost the speed of light requires a vacuum as empty as interplanetary space. There is 10 times

more atmosphere on the moon than there will be in the LHC.

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One of the coldest places in the universe…

With an operating temperature of about -271 degrees Celsius, just 1.9 degrees above absolute zero,

the LHC is colder than outer space.

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The hottest spots in the galaxy…

When two beams of protons collide, they will generate temperatures 1000 million times hotter than the

heart of the sun, but in a minuscule space.

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The biggest most sophisticated detectors ever built…

ALICE

To sample and record the debris from up to 600 million proton collisions per second, scientists are building gargantuan

devices that measure particles with micron precision.20 February 2008

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One of the most extensive computer system in the world…

To analyse the data, tens of thousands of computers around the world are being harnessed in the Grid. The laboratory that gave the world

the web, is now taking distributed computing a big step further.

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The Mecca of the Particle Physics community …

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… bringing the world together

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