Data Logistics and the CMS Analysis Model
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Date
2009-04-20
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Vanderbilt University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
The Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment (CMS) at the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) at CERN has brilliant prospects for uncovering new
information about the physical structure of our universe. Soon
physicists around the world will participate together in analyzing CMS
data in search of new physics phenomena and the Higgs Boson. However,
they face a significant problem: with 5 Petabytes of data needing
distribution each year, how will physicists get the data they need?
How and where will they be able to analyze it? Computing resources and
scientists are scattered around the world, while CMS data exists in
localized chunks. The CMS computing model only allows analysis of
locally stored data, "tethering" analysis to storage. The Vanderbilt
CMS team is actively working to solve this problem with the Research
and Education Data Depot Network (REDDnet), a program run by
Vanderbilt's Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education
(ACCRE). I participated in this effort by testing data transfers into
REDDnet via the gridFTP server, a File Transfer Protocol which
incorporates an LHC Computing Grid security layer. I created a test
suite which helped identify and solve a large number of problems with
gridFTP. Once optimized, I achieved sustained throughputs of 700-800
Megabits per second (Mbps) over a 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps)
connection, with remarkably few failures. GridFTP is the gateway
between REDDnet and CMS, and my tests were designed to exercise and
harden this important tool. My results support other indications that
the REDDnet system will be a successful solution to the limitations of
data-tethering in the CMS computing model.
Description
Honors in Physics
Keywords
CMS, REDDnet, GridFTP, Data logistics, Data storage