challenged confessions - The LHC’s Secret Weapon

Sep 12, 2008

The LHC’s Secret Weapon - The Grid
It’s a solution to one of the LHC’s most important problems: the 15 Petabytes of data it will spit out annually, none of which can just be stored on site at the CERN in Switzerland. Rather, the data needs to be globally parceled out to the 7,000 physicists involved in the project.
The history of the Internet is dotted with sporadic jumps in speed and efficiency, but this tops them all: the Grid is 10,000 times faster than the fastest existing broadband. It’s huge.

It’s a solution to one of the LHC’s most important problems: the 15 Petabytes of data it will spit out annually, none of which can just be stored on site at the CERN in Switzerland. Rather, the data needs to be globally parceled out to the 7,000 physicists involved in the project.

The history of the Internet is dotted with sporadic jumps in speed and efficiency, but this tops them all: the Grid is 10,000 times faster than the fastest existing broadband. It’s huge.

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