• Home
• Articles Archive
• Features List

• Media Pack
• Contact Us
• Subscribe

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

From STORAGE Magazine Vol 6, Issue 7 - September 2006

Lancaster University is playing a key role in probing into the very nature of matter more deeply than has ever been possible before

The Large Hadron Collider - a particle accelerator based at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) on the Swiss/French border - will probe into the nature of matter more deeply than ever before. By analysing the huge amounts of data generated when particles collide at high energy levels in an extraordinarily small space, the project researchers will discover more about the fundamentals of matter and the universe itself.

Lancaster University is one of many sites in the EU EGEE (Enabling Grids for eScience in Europe) and (CERN) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Computing Grid (LCG). Dr Roger Jones from Lancaster University's department of physics, and a member of the ATLAS experiment, led the project and realised that they needed a powerful computing resource combined with large, reliable storage and excellent price/performance to manage this endeavour successfully.

"The twin challenges to be faced were the use of high quality commodity computer products and matching the performance and stability of normal supercomputers," said Dr. Jones. "This involved a radical re-think to the normal powerful computing architecture and was coupled with the requirement for significant amounts of data storage which could be expanded at a later date."

High-Powered
Storage Solution
The LHC is expected to produce 15 Petabytes (15 million Gigabytes) of physics data annually, which needs to be accessible for analysis by physicists around the world. To analyse this data, ClusterVision was selected to design a large-scale computer cluster as a cost-effective alternative to traditional supercomputers.

The clusters consist of 209 dual processor computer servers, or 'nodes', with Intel Xeon EM64T processors. Data storage is provided by 14 of Infortrend's class-leading EonStor A16U-G13A-M1 RAID arrays, each equipped with 16 400GB hard disk drives. These subsystems provide high availability by using hot-swappable drives, power supplies and fan modules.

"We configured the A16U-G13A-M1 as RAID 5 for a high level of data integrity," says Dr Matthijs van Leeuwen of ClusterVision. Additionally, the Infortrend RAID subsystems provided a bandwidth that comfortably matches the projected needs of Lancaster University. The Infortrend RAID subsystems proved very easy to integrate with the ClusterVision clusters."

Dr Peter Love, from Lancaster University's department of physics and GridP member, explained the process. "We produce simulation data for the four experiments that are running on the LHC. This is then stored on the Infortrend RAID subsystem for comparison with the actual measured results from the LHC.

"With the successful testing of the 84TB of storage, Lancaster University currently has the largest disk resource of any university site in the UK's LCG effort," he continues. "The Infortrend A16U-G13A-M1 RAID subsystems are an absolutely crucial part of the facility and are located at an independent storage facility within the university."

"Infortrend Europe is excited to be associated with Lancaster University and the work of Dr Peter Love on the ATLAS project," comments Alex Young, technical director of Infortrend Europe. "Our leading-edge RAID storage subsystems are ideally suited to this type of large-scale storage."

About ClusterVision
ClusterVision specialises in the design, implementation and support of large-scale computer clusters. Its clustering technology provides an alternative to traditional supercomputing by using a method of connecting multiple computers to form a unified and powerful computing system. By using high-quality commodity computer components and proven open source software technology, its clusters can match the performance and stability of traditional supercomputers for a fraction of the cost. Every ClusterVision cluster is delivered as a fully functional turnkey system, with all hardware and software integrated and configured for immediate deployment. Each of its clusters is designed to meet customer's specific computational requirements at maximum performance, maximum reliability and minimum cost.

About the LHC Computing Grid & the EGEE Project
The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) Computing Grid is a flagship grid project to provide a computational and data-intensive grid of resources for collaborative research and scientific exploration, carried forward in partnership with the EGEE (Enabling Grids for eScience in Europe) Project, which is funded through the European Union Framework Programme. For more information, please visit: http://lcg.web.cern.ch/lcg/  and http://public.eu-egee.org.