Kontich, 13 September, 2005 - Intel today announced that CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, has successfully run a series of mission-critical simulations of the heat flow around huge underground particle detectors currently being installed for its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, using a powerful Intel(r) Itanium(r) 2 processor-based cluster. The LHC, a vast particle accelerator 27 km in circumference, which is due to start operation in 2007, is the largest scientific instrument on the planet. The same advanced computing cluster has been used to help CERN push the limits for sustained high-speed data transfer.
As part of ongoing data transfer challenges, CERN has proven that the Intel-based system can export data at a record rate of 600MB per second on average for 10 days to its global network of sister laboratories.
This is a major step forward in simulating the ultimate performance required of the LHC Computing Grid, which will have to distribute data at 1,500MB per second sustained over more than a decade, to be analyzed at over 150 computing centers around the world. The data, which consists of images of the results of protons colliding head-on inside the particle detectors at practically the speed of light, will be sifted through by thousands of particle physicists for years to come, in search of signs of new particles and phenomena that provide clues to the origin of the Universe.
The CERN opencluster is an advanced Intel Itanium 2-based system, developed as part of CERN openlab, an industrial partnership with Intel, HP, IBM, Oracle and Enterasys, for test and validation of cutting-edge solutions in CERN's highly demanding computing environment. The opencluster was recently used to optimise airflow within the LHC caverns that house the huge underground detectors. The opencluster was enlisted to help CERN engineers who were hard-pressed to complete crucial simulations with more conventional computing resources. By determining the temperature distribution around the detectors under a variety of conditions, the engineers can ensure safety and avoid damage to sensitive and hard-to-access detector components. As the detectors are already being installed in the caverns this year, getting the simulation results quickly is mission-critical, and the Intel Itanium 2-based opencluster have accelerated the process dramatically for the CERN engineers.
In a separate set of tests which involved the CERN opencluster pushing data across high-speed networks to seven partner laboratories in Europe and the US, CERN and its partners announced that they had sustained 600MB per second on average for 10 days. This is nearly half the ultimate data transfer rate required for the LHC Computing Grid, which provides the computing infrastructure for the LHC detectors. With two years to go until the LHC is operational, the result is extremely encouraging, showing that the LHC Computing Grid is on track to provide the necessary capacity. Key to the success of these tests was the high reliability and I/O throughput of the Intel-based systems in the CERN opencluster.
CERN and its partners will continue to improve on this result over the coming months, increasing the test requirements on Intel Itanium 2 and Intel(r) Xeon(tm) processor based systems until the LHC Computing Grid runs at 100% production capability. To put this data rate in perspective, it is estimated that the total data produced during one year of operation of the LHC will exceed 15 Petabytes (millions of Gigabytes), which is comparable with 1% of the estimated worldwide production of information today in both digital and non-digital forms.
"The LHC Computing Grid represents an extremely exciting development in scientific computing, said Sverre Jarp, CTO of CERN openlab. "The challenge of having to distribute and store over 15 Petabytes of data per year across the globe, and analyse this with a worldwide network of tens of thousands of CPUs, is forcing us to push cluster-based computing and high-speed networking to new limits. Running successful tests on the CERN opencluster, relying on the Intel Itanium 2 and Intel Xeon processor-based platforms, provides us with the assurance that we have the capability to record, process and export the vast amounts of information that will be generated."
"CERN has a long-standing tradition in technology and scientific leadership, from both its work in advanced physics and as the birthplace of the World Wide Web," said Brian Harrison, Vice President, General Manager, Intel EMEA. "Intel is delighted that CERN is running their flagship project with Intel Itanium 2 and Intel Xeon processor platforms. These Intel based computing platforms offer not only excellent number crunching performance but increased availability, reliability and scalability as well. We at Intel eagerly await the results of the next stage in the LHC trials and other research efforts at CERN."
About CERN
CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, has its headquarters in Geneva. At present Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.
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