National Grid Seminar Series

Grid Computing at CERN: An Update on Preparations for First Beam in 2007

Prof. Lawrence Pinsky
Chair, Physics Department
University of Houston

03 October 2006 (Tuesday)
1600 hours @ The Big One, Level 1
Institute for Infocomm Research
21, Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Singapore 119613

Abstract

As an update to the situation as described in the talk at the Gelato-ICE April meeting, more experience has been obtained, including the use of Itaniums within the Grid infrastructure in the most recent and intensive data challenges conducted in preparation for the final run-up to turn on of the LHC machine at CERN.  The LHC project at CERN will receive first beam in mid 2007 and the major experiments there will all be depending on Grid-based distributed computing to provide the necessary data analysis.  ALICE, the dedicated relativistic heavy ion experiment at the LHC, will be dependent on the most eclectic of grid infrastructures and the widest variety of platforms within that infrastructure.  While Itaniums are scattered throughout the various experiments for a number of tasks, ALICE is the only one of the experiments that will employ a significant number of Itanium nodes as part of the main Grid distributed environment.  The physics of ALICE is among the most challenging of the LHC experiments from a computing standpoint and that physics will be reviewed along with an update of the performance of the Itaniums and the Grid-middleware that is reaching operational form.

Biodata

Professor Lawrence Pinsky is the chairperson of the Physics Department at the University of Houston.  He holds a B.S. in physics from Carnegie-Mellon University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Rochester.  Professor Pinsky also holds J.D. and LL.M. degrees from the University of Houston's Law Center.  He is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas, specializing in intellectual property and information law, as well as being a licensed patent attorney.

He has also taught intellectual property law courses at the University of Houston's Law Center.  He has published over 125 articles in refereed journals and he gives from 5-10 invited talks each year.  He is on the organizing committees of several major international  conferences  each  year, including  the recent  CHEP '06 (Computing in High Energy Physics-2006) conference in Mumbai, India. Professor Pinsky is a member of the ALICE-USA Collaboration and has served as the Computing Coordinator for that effort.  He is a member of the ALICE Computing Board and the CERN Grid Deployment Board.  At the University of Houston he is a member of the Executive Committee of the Texas Learning and Computation Center.  Professor Pinsky also has an extensive NASA-supported research effort in the development of Monte Carlo Transport codes for use in simulating the space radiation environment. Professor Pinsky is currently directing 5 Ph.D. thesis students (4 in physics and 1 in computer science) along with one post-doctoral fellow.

---
This seminar series is organized by the National Grid Office.

Admission is Free. All are Welcome.
Please click here to register by 1500 hours on 02 October 2006.