World's biggest virtual supercomputer given the go-ahead (Forwarded)

Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Swindon, U.K.

Contact Details:

Steve Lloyd
GridPP Collaboration Chair
Queen Mary, University of London
Tel +44 20 7882 5057
Email:

Tony Doyle
GridPP Project Leader
University of Glasgow
Tel +44 141 330 5899
Email:

Neil Geddes
Director, e-Science
PPARC
Tel: 01793 442119
Email:

Julia Maddock
PPARC Press Office
Tel. 01793 442094
Email:

16 December 2003

World's biggest virtual supercomputer given the go-ahead

The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council has today announced GBP 16
million to create a massive computing Grid, equivalent to the worlds second
largest supercomputer after Japans Earth Simulator computer. This Grid, known as
GridPP2 will eventually form part of a larger European Grid, to be used to
process the data deluge from CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory,
when its new facility, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), comes online in 2007.

GridPP is a collaboration of UK Particle Physicists and Computer Scientists
working together to create a Grid for particle physics, enabling them to process
the vast volumes of data generated in experiments. The LHC, a particle
accelerator which will probe the nature of matter, is expected to generate data
at a rate equivalent to 20 million CDs a year.

Professor Ian Halliday, Chief Executive of PPARC, said GridPP2 will place UK
particle physicists in a prime position to exploit physics from the Large Hadron
Collider.

"The GridPP2 Grid will address the future computing requirements of all the UK
Particle Physics Experiments and should provide efficient sharing of resources
between Particle Physics and other disciplines at the institutes," added Steve
Lloyd, GridPP Collaboration Board Chair.

Grid computing shares the resources of connected computers, much as the World
Wide Web (also created at CERN) enables the sharing of information between
computers. By connecting large numbers of computers together, particle
physicists are able to run simulations and analysis in a fraction of the time it
would take to run on a single machine. Such work can also be done on
supercomputers, but as these are custom built they are expensive and in high
demand. The benefit of Grid computing is that it is constructed from cheap units
and can be expanded or reduced to fit the users needs.

Dr Neil Geddes, PPARCs Director of E-Science said, "Todays money will be used to
create a grid equivalent to 20,000 1GHz personal computers. This is the largest
in the world to be funded so far."

For the past year, GridPP have been running a prototype grid or testbed across
ten UK sites. From this they have developed the middleware needed for a larger Grid.

"GridPP2 will test new Grid computing technologies on a scale that we could have
barely considered two years ago," said Tony Doyle, the GridPP Project Leader.
"The Grid deployed in phase 1 taught us about the importance of a series of
testbeds where the software is incrementally integrated and tested within an
annual deployment lifecycle. Running a stable large-scale grid service will be a
major challenge and for this reason a key component of GridPP2 will be the
establishment a core production team at the heart of deployment."

Middleware is the programming that allows the software (the programmes the
scientists are using) to take advantage of the hardware (the computing resources
they need to access). Middleware tackles issues such as security (e.g. allowing
outside users access to a sites computers) and brokering (breaking data up into
packages to be sent around the country or even world for rapid processing).

GridPPs testbed was incorporated into the LHC Computing Grid in September 2003,
which was the first time a production grid was deployed world-wide. GridPP is
also working with projects such as the EU-funded Enabling Grids for E-Science in
Europe (EGEE) which will integrate current national, regional and thematic Grid
efforts to create a seamless European Grid infrastructure for the support of the
European Research Area.

The experience gained in the GridPP project forms the basis of the much wider
deployment of scientific computing grids which we are seeing across UK
Universities through the UK's e-Science programme. Industry has also been quick
to appreciate the benefits of these technologies.

The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) is the UK's
strategic science investment agency. It funds research, education and public
understanding in four broad areas of science -- particle physics, astronomy,
cosmology and space science.

PPARC is government funded and provides research grants and studentships to
scientists in British universities, gives researchers access to world-class
facilities and funds the UK membership of international bodies such as the
European Organisation for Nuclear Research, CERN, the European Space Agency and
the European Southern Observatory. It also contributes money for the UK
telescopes overseas on La Palma, Hawaii, Australia and in Chile, the UK
Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh and the
MERLIN/VLBI National Facility.

Images:

[Image 1:
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/map.jpg (227KB)]
Map of UK participating institutions, copyright GridPP.

[Image 2:
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/datagrid_hires.jpg (106KB)]
CERN artists diagram demonstrating Grid concept, copyright CERN.

[Image 3:
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/tapedrives_hires.jpg (1MB)]
Data drives at CERN, copyright CERN.

Notes for Editors

* The Grid is named in analogy with the Electricity Grid, which supplies your
needs but doesnt require you to select the source of the power or to know
anything about where it is coming from, it is simply ready on demand.

* GridPP is a collaboration of 19 UK academic institutions and CERN. The UK
institutions a the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Brunel, Cambridge,
Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial College, Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester,
Oxford, Queen Mary, Royal Holloway, Sheffield, Sussex, University of Wales
Swansea, University College London and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

* The University of Liverpool node of the Grid alone is so large that it is the
equivalent to the 86th biggest supercomputer in the world.

* The funding from PPARC is GBP 16 Million over the period 2004 to 2007 to
deploy the worlds largest persistent grid computing system with committed resources.

* For more information on the LHC Computing Grid see
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/Press/grid_goes_live.asp
* For more information on EGEE, see
http://www.cern.ch/egee-ei/2003/