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2005/11/25

World's biggest grid seeks secrets of the universe

World's biggest grid seeks secrets of the universe

By Steve Ranger Special to CNET News.com
Published: November 24, 2005, 10:30 AM PST

The mysteries of dark matter, multiple dimensions and even the conditions following the Big Bang could be solved with the help of the world's biggest computer grid.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) being constructed at CERN near Geneva will be the largest scientific instrument on the planet and will need the hugely powerful computing to process the 15 petabytes of data that it will produce each year.

The LHC will smash protons and ions into head-on collisions to help scientists understand the structure of matter.

Discovering new types of particles can only be done by statistical analysis of the massive amounts of data the experiments will generate, which is where the LHC Computing Grid project comes in.

And although the LHC won't be up and running until 2007, work has already begun on the grid, with the UK being one of the largest contributors.

Of the 150 grid sites around the world, 18 are in the U.K. And much of the U.K. work is being done at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Oxfordshire, England.

Because of the scale of processing needed, grid is the best way to go, explained John Gordon deputy director of the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils e-Science Centre at RAL. "The computing has been planned for years; we've been looking at distributed computing for a long time," said Gordon.

He added: "They couldn't afford to do all the computing at CERN so we knew we would have a big distributed computing problem of sifting the data around the world and finding it again. It's the biggest production grid in the world."

The grid will use a four-tier model; data will be stored on tape at CERN, the 'Tier-0' centre. From there, data will be distributed to Tier-1 sites which have the storage and processing capacity to cope with a chunk of the data. These sites make the data available to the Tier-2s, which are able to run particular tasks. Individual scientists can then access data from Tier-3 sites which could be local clusters or individual PCs.

RAL hosts the UK's Tier-1 site, with the universities of Lancaster and Edinburgh and Imperial College operating Tier-2 sites.

And while real data won't start flowing until 2007, scientists are already using lots of processing power on simulations. Gordon said: "They need to know what they are looking for so they do lots of simulations."

Commodity hardware and open source software are being used to keep costs down; "because it's worldwide we are all looking at open source," said Gordon. "All the grid stuff is done in open source, that's taken for granted. Grid should use standard protocols, it's across administrative domains."

Network bandwidth will also be key--at the moment it has a 2Gbps dedicated link to CERN--the same amount of bandwidth RAL uses for all the rest of its internet traffic, and the plan is to build a dedicated fibre-optic network between the sites.

Gordon said: "What we are looking at is setting up a network of private light-paths to Tier-1 sites."

Managing the huge number of files the experiments will generate is another problem the team is working on, according to Gordon: "You end up with millions of files and the problem comes in handling them and that's where the data management comes in. Data management is key."

But beyond all the exciting technology, much of the work will be in persuading different organizations to share. Gordon said: "A lot of it is sociological--you are persuading people that they gain by connecting all their computers together. It's about collaboration; it's not about people sitting in London using computers all over the world, it's about groups of people working on the same problem."

Steve Ranger of Silicon.com reported from London.		探索宇宙之谜的世上最大网络



神秘的暗物质、多维空间、甚至于大爆炸后的情形都可以通过这世上最大的计算机网络帮助解决。



巨型的强子对撞机正在靠近日内瓦欧洲粒子物理试验室建设中，将是最大的科学试验仪器，需要强大的运算能力，每年要处理88数据。

对撞机会打碎质子和离子已使其正面相撞，从而能使科学家能够了解物质的结构。

饭现新的粒子只有在从大量的试验数据中分析中做到。 这正是对撞机项目要做的。

尽管对撞机要到2007年完工。在最大的赞助商英国的资助下，网络的工作已经展开。


全球共有150家网点。18家位于英国。而且位于英格兰牛津郡的卢色福阿普尔顿实验室（RAL）的大部分工作已经完工。

因为处理规模的需要，网络化是最好的途径。John Gordon，RAL实验室的e-Science中心研究委员会实验室中心委员会的主人助理解释说，“已经计划好多年了，我们考虑用分布计算已经很长时间了。”



他补充说，“在CERN,他们不能承担所有的运算,因此我们我们有一个巨大的分布运算的问题，已全球交换数据和重新找到，这将是世界上最大的处理网络。”


网络将会才用四层模式，数据保存在CERN，‘tier-0’中心，从自此，分布到‘tier－1’站点，那里有存储和处理大量数据的能力。从这，可以将数据传输到一些 Tier－2站点，这些站点用以处理特定的任务。单独的科学家可以通过Tier－3站点进入，站点可以是本地簇或是个人电脑

RAL主控英国的Tier－1站点，兰喀斯特和爱丁堡的大学和皇家学院掌管Tier－2.


直到2007年真正处理数据之前，科学家们已经在进行模拟运行。Gordon说，“他们需要知道他们在寻找什么，因此他们作了大量的模拟。”


应用常用硬件和开源软件以降低成本，“因为在全球范围内，我们用开源软件，”Gordon说，“所有的网络资料都用开源软件，网路将用标准协议，能够通过管理域。”

宽带也是关键，在瞬间连接CERN的流量达到每秒2G字节。其他的传输都要用相同的带宽。而且计划在站点之间直通的光纤网络。


Gordon说，“我们正在关注的是建立通往Tier－1站点的专门的光路。”


团队面临解决的另一个问题是如何管理由试验产生的数量巨大的文件，按照Gordon说法，成千上万的文件，以及处理这些问题所产生的问题，正是所以要数据管理的原因。数据管理是关键。”


除了这所有的令人兴奋的技术之外，大部工作都说服不同的组织来共享。Gordon说，“大部分问题都是社会问题，你要说服人们他们是在和别的电脑联机后获利的，是通力合作，不是端坐在伦敦使用全球的电脑，是一大群人在为共同的难题工作。”

Steve Ranger Silicon.com伦敦报道。
技术和梦想将人们连在一起。

freemanwqa 发表于 2005-11-25 14:36  阅读(1307) 评论( 2) 引用( 0) 我诌
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