CERN

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Building the UK Grid for Particle Physics
GridPP is a collaboration of around 100
researchers in 19 UK University particle physics
groups, CCLRC and CERN. It is funded by PPARC as
part of its e-Science Programme.
GridPP is developing applications to allow the
four future LHC experiments to use the Grid. It
is testing them using Monte Carlo simulated data.
CERNs Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will go live
in 2007. It will produce 15 petabytes of data a
year equivalent to a stack of CDs 20km tall.
This data will be analysed by around 100,000 PCs
in 100 institutions worldwide, on the LHC
Computing Grid. GridPP is the UKs contribution.
The UKs particle physics Grid currently has more
than 2,000 computers at 16 locations. This will
rise to 10,000 computers by 2007. It allows
scientists to access data and processing power
seamlessly, wherever they are. As well as
installing computers at sites across the UK,
GridPP has written middleware to run and manage a
secure Grid.
It is developing applications for US experiments
and testing them using real data. GridPP is also
working with other e-scientists.