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HP Joins CERN
Collaboration to Advance Grid Technologies
By Paul Shread
HP has joined the CERN openlab for DataGrid applications.
The CERN openlab is an industrial collaboration formed to
push the limits of emerging Grid technologies by developing
novel solutions to the massive data storage and analysis
challenges of both the research community and the IT industry.
CERN, Europe's top laboratory for particle physics, boasts a
next-generation particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider,
that will begin generating data at the rate of millions of
gigabytes - or petabytes - per second starting in 2007. Even
though only a minute fraction of this data will be stored for
further analysis, it will still result in dozens of petabytes
per year. The huge datasets will be distributed worldwide so
that scientists everywhere can have access to them.
Other collaborators in the CERN openlab include Intel and
Enterasys Networks. HP will initially supply CERN with advanced
hardware to construct a 32-node cluster of computers optimized
for data-intensive scientific computing. Code-named the
"CERN opencluster," it will be powered by Itanium 2
processors provided by Intel and linked to CERN's emerging
DataGrid infrastructure via a high-speed 10 gigabit Ethernet
backbone provided by Enterasys Networks.
Going well beyond hardware, the collaboration will enable
researchers from CERN and HP Labs to explore solutions beyond
today's Internet-based computing. Deploying the CERN opencluster
into the demanding worldwide Grid environment being used for
physics simulations could provide valuable insight into how the
Grid could be used in future information processing
infrastructures and utilities, HP said.
"The research alliance with CERN provides HP with a
demanding testbed for some of our most advanced IT solutions and
it will be an excellent proving ground for our hardware,"
said Jim Duley, director for technology programs, HP University
Relations. "We look forward to contributing to the CERN
openlab and using the experience to help bring the benefits of
grid computing to the enterprise."
"It's a win-win arrangement," said Manuel Delfino,
IT division leader, CERN. "CERN gains access to some of the
world's most advanced technologies for building IT
infrastructure and provides in return a focused and extreme
computational challenge with which to test it. HP will bring
invaluable experience to the group and we are thrilled to have
them join us."
More information about the CERN openlab for DataGrid
applications collaboration is available at http://www.cern.ch/openlab.
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