GridPP Management and Outreach
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
'The Grid' is the next leap in computer interconnectivity. The Internet and the World Wide Web are increasingly an integral part of people's lives, helping the world share information and transfer data quickly and easily. In the same way as we now share files and facts over the global network of computers, in the future the Grid will let us share other things, such as processing power and storage space. The Grid is a practical solution to the problems of storing and processing the large quantities of data that will be produced by industry and the scientific communities over the next decade. Particle physicists are waiting for 2007 when a new particle accelerator opens in the world's largest particle physics laboratory, CERN. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be the most powerful instrument ever built to investigate fundamental physics. Once this is fully functional the amount of data being produced will be massive. All this will be too much for one institution to handle so they need to share resources i.e. to use distributed computing. The Grid is built on the same Internet infrastructure as the web, but uses different tools. Middleware is one of these tools. In a stand alone computer the resources allocated to each job are managed by the operating system e.g. Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X. Middleware is like the operating system of a Grid, allowing users to access resources without searching for them manually. GridPP has developed middleware for the Grid, in collaboration with other international projects. Due to GridPP's open source policy, the middleware can evolve and be improved by the people who use it. Distributed computing has been available to scientists for some time but, in general, the use of different sites has to be negotiated by each scientist individually. They need a separate account on each system and jobs have to be submitted and results collected back by hand. Current distributed computing means the user has a lot of work to do to get their results. This is where the idea of Grid computing comes in. Middleware lets users simply submit jobs to the Grid without having to know where the data is or where the jobs will run. The software can run the job where the data is, or move the data to where there is CPU power available. Using the Grid and middleware, all the user has to do is submit a job and pick up the results. Acting as the gatekeeper and matchmaker for the Grid, middleware monitors the Grid, decides where to send computing jobs, manages users, data and storage. It will check the identity of the user through the use of digital certificates. A digital certificate is a file stored securely on a users computer which allows the Grid to correctly identify a user. The certificates are given to a user by the Certification Authority, with numerous steps to ensure the person applying is who they say they are. The middleware automatically extracts the users' identity from their digital certificate and uses this to log them in. This means users don't have to remember user names and passwords to log onto the Grid, they're automatically logged on using their Grid certificate. After this seamless identification process the middleware will find the most convenient and efficient places for the job to be run and organise efficient access to the relevant scientific data. It deals with authentication to the different sites being used, runs the jobs, keeps track of progress, lets the user know when the work is complete and transfers the result back.
People |
ORCID iD |
Stephen Lloyd (Principal Investigator) | |
Sarah Pearce (Researcher) |
Publications
Aad G
(2013)
Single hadron response measurement and calorimeter jet energy scale uncertainty with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in The European Physical Journal C
Mehlhase S
(2013)
Searches for heavy long-lived sleptons and R -hadrons with the ATLAS detector
in EPJ Web of Conferences
ATLAS Collaboration
(2013)
Multi-channel search for squarks and gluinos in [Formula: see text]pp collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2013)
Measurement of the azimuthal angle dependence of inclusive jet yields in Pb+Pb collisions at v(sNN)=2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2013)
Search for contact interactions and large extra dimensions in dilepton events from p p collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2013)
Search for single b ? -quark production with the ATLAS detector at s = 7 TeV
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for a heavy narrow resonance decaying to eµ, et, or µt with the ATLAS detector in s = 7 TeV pp collisions at the LHC
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for long-lived stopped R -hadrons decaying out of time with p p collisions using the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2013)
Search for new phenomena in events with three charged leptons at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2013)
Search for long-lived, multi-charged particles in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for pair-produced massive coloured scalars in four-jet final states with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7\ \mbox{TeV}$
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2013)
Measurement of the flavour composition of dijet events in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7\ \mbox{TeV}$ with the ATLAS detector
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2013)
Measurement of ZZ production in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=7 $ TeV and limits on anomalous ZZZ and ZZ? couplings with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
ATLAS Collaboration
(2013)
Jet energy resolution in proton-proton collisions at [Formula: see text] recorded in 2010 with the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2013)
Search for nonpointing photons in the diphoton and E T miss final state in s = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions using the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2013)
Search for microscopic black holes in a like-sign dimuon final state using large track multiplicity with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2013)
Dynamics of isolated-photon plus jet production in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Nuclear Physics B
The ATLAS Collaboration
(2013)
Search for a light charged Higgs boson in the decay channel [Formula: see text] in [Formula: see text] events using pp collisions at [Formula: see text] with the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2013)
Search for charged Higgs bosons through the violation of lepton universality in $ t\overline{t} $ events using pp collision data at $ \sqrt{s}=7 $ TeV with the ATLAS experiment
in Journal of High Energy Physics
ATLAS Collaboration
(2013)
Improved luminosity determination in pp collisions at [Formula: see text] using the ATLAS detector at the LHC.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
ATLAS Collaboration
(2013)
Measurement of the inclusive jet cross-section in pp collisions at [Formula: see text] and comparison to the inclusive jet cross-section at [Formula: see text] using the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2013)
Observation of Associated Near-Side and Away-Side Long-Range Correlations insNN=5.02 TeVProton-Lead Collisions with the ATLAS Detector
in Physical Review Letters
Description | We have built a Grid to analyse data from the LHC at CERN and elsewhere. This enabled the discovery of the Higgs Boson, the fundamental scalar boson that is predicted to give mass to all other particles. |
Exploitation Route | Further research is required to establish if this is the Higgs Boson or if it is one of many (possibly Supersymmetric) Higgs Bosons. |
Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
URL | https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/AtlasPublic |
Description | Other disciplines have used our Grid for their own purposes. |
First Year Of Impact | 2008 |
Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
Impact Types | Societal |