Super Massive Computer Geek!

In the afternoon we were given a tour of the CERN computing services. This was the first time i've actually seen how they store and manage a network server.

It was mega cool!!!!!!!!!!! (Okay, I'm a nerd and i'm proud to admit i get excited by looking at computer hard drives;-))

The key thing about any server is cooling. For CERN, the power needed is between 25 -30 Mega Watts of power! That's like switching on 10,000 light bulbs of a rating of 100W at the same time!
So in this big massive factory room, they have massive fans which help cool the server down. It is pretty noticeable too as when we went to the main Server area, it was really cool. (It has been incredibly hot and sunny today.)

So why all this fuss about computers? Well, to sort through the millions of collisions that they are going to do with the LHC and analyse the results to try and find the Higgs particle, they need - computers! and lots of them.
In fact, they need approximately 1,000,000 times more computing power than they did for their old colliders.

This is where i get a little bit geeky...... i had always thought that a Server was some big network that was controlled by a 'Mother Computer' or 'Mainframe'. Apparently this isn't very efficient and for the new server system they are connecting computers in parallel in 'computer farms'. I'll post some pictures to show you what they are like.

The coolest thing about CERN is that they are a 'Open Lab'. This means they are a bit like the SETI program. Any data they collect from their particle accelerators are passed onto other institutions who do the data processing. They are also quite happy to do research for both Science and Industry. As a result, companies like 'Intel' will give them their latest prototypes - 2 to 3 years before they come onto the market!!!!!! And there is a guy who actually gets to play with them all day and get paid for it!!!!!

At the time of press of this blog, CERN also holds the fastest data transfer from 1 disc to another disc record. The write speed from CERN to a computer in San Jose, California, America, (I hope i got that right!) is 895Mb/s. Um, my hard drive is less than 10% of that! And it takes me a couple of minutes to burn any music CDs. However, I'm not a true computer geek so i'm sure some of you guys will help me put this into context.......

Anyhoots, there is one particular fact that i found interesting, especially for all the Standard Grade pupils. As i mentioned earlier, CERN generates lots of Data which they then pass onto other people to work on. I have mentioned in previous posts that this is done through the Internet. Well, it turns out that all this data transfer is done by.... copper wires!!!! And not optical fibres!!! The reasons are the following, (apologises if i have not got all the technical stuff correct....)

(i) Optical fibres require booster units which effectively slow down the signal and cause the speed of the connection to slow down. (Bear in mind we are talking about 100s of Mb/s!
(ii) Copper wires have a bigger range of frequencies which means you can multipex (I think that means sending lots of different bits of information down the same line) more than optical fibres

This is kinda wierd as i've always told pupils in my Standard Grade course that, 'optical fibres' are the way forward for Telecommunications.....

The other thing is that CERN is one of 24 sites which host a major server for the 'Worldwide Web'. What this means is that if i were to accidently pull some wires out... i could have knocked out the entire internet service for most of Eastern Europe and Russia for half minute before it could be re-routed through other Servers!!!! World domination here i come! The funny thing is that the Server responsible for this is just one tiny cabinent compared to the rows and rows of hard disks used by CERN. ( I have the pictures to prove it too!)

Finally, i was told on our tour that GPS is not really as accurate as it is made out to be. This is because the Military can fiddle with it to mask the true positions of their units. Of course, when they do this, they blame it on a 'software error' or something similar. So if you find you GPS is faulty, this might not be your fault entirely!

The answer to this lies in the European 'Galileo' GPS system. This should not suffer from the same nterference from the military as i believe they don't have any control of it like the current GPS system.