Events
LCG-France meeting / Rencontre LCG-France
LCG-France Sites meeting / Rencontre des Sites LCG-France
Grenoble, 27 - 28 November 2008
2nd LCG-France colloquium / 2ème Colloque LCG-France
LCG-France: steadily ramping-up to get ready for the LHC
In March 2007, more than seventy members of the LCG-France project gathered in order to discuss about the progression of the French part of the global grid infrastructure for LHC accelerator. This meeting which was divided into several sessions highlighted the challenging aspect of the computing grid with respect to the LHC experiments and the progress made during the last several months. It was also the occasion to reinforce communication between the representatives of the experiments and the sites.
At the dawn of the start of the LHC, new members have joined the French part of the LCG grid. Indeed, “the required data processing capacity and the complexity of the installation and management of the computing as well as the effort needed to provide and operate a reliable platform for the needs of the experiments, have led to an important increase in the staff and in the number of French sites” said Fairouz Malek, scientific manager of the LCG France project.
Several Tiers-3 sites have joined the ranks of LCG-France. Today, the project is composed of a Tier-1 and an analysis facility operated by the IN2P3 Computing Center (CNRS/CEA) , 3 Tiers-2, 4 Tiers-3. In addition, several sites are associated to the French Tier-1 located in foreign countries including China, Belgium, Japan, and Romania. The four LHC experiments are supported in any of the sites which also provide computing resources for non-LHC experiments, projects and fields of research, mainly in the EGEE grid context.
In 2006, during the data transfer exercises, the French infrastructure of the LCG grid was tested with success. All the French sites successfully contributed to those exercises and the goals of those exercises were all reached.
On its side, the French Tier-1, whose budget has noticeably risen, has to carry out work to sort out problems of electric installation and air conditioning so as to cope with the planned increase of its computing equipment. In spite of several difficulties faced, all the measures have been taken to maintain the Tier-1 operational while those heavy works are performed.
Finally, this meeting was also the occasion for site representatives and members of ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb experiments to exchange views and information, which enabled to strengthen links between the two groups. The needs of the experiments, not only in terms of computing and data storage capacity but also in terms of quality of service and bandwidth requirements, were clearly presented: "the sites had the opportunity to hear about the particular needs of each experiment and to expose in turn their own constraints concerning the operations of the computing resources. These exchanges will certainly allow to further improve the service for the benefit of the experiments" said Fabio HERNANDEZ, technical manager of the project LCG-France and deputy director of CC-IN2P3.
1er Colloque LCG-France (Décembre 2005)
First LCG-France Workshop was held at CC-IN2P3 in Lyon in december 2005.
LCG-France a organisé un colloque de 2 jours sur le campus de La Doua à Villeurbanne les 14 et 15 décembre 2005. Ces journées étaient destinées aux personnes désirant partager, communiquer et échanger les idées autour du calcul LHC dans le cadre du projet LCG et de la collaboration WLCG et de réfléchir ensemble sur la plannification des ressources, des logiciels et la mise en route du calcul en 2007. Des revues sur l'état actuel des centres de ressources, Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3 français et du centre d'analyse ont été données. Une réflexion sur l'avenir du calcul dans le cadre des grilles de calcul a eu toute sa places lors de ces journées. La participation record d'environ 70 personnes, physiciens, ingénieurs et techniciens des laboratoires de l'IN2P3 et du Dapnia, en particulier ceux impliqués dans les expériences LHC, a été réalisée.
