PIC’s cooling system with oils is on the cover of the last issue of the DatacenterDynamics, a magazine about the business of data centers.
News
Manuel Delfino talk at Fundación BBVA
Manuel Delfino was participate in the talk “CERN’s computing at the service of science and its impact on society”.
Maite Barroso Lopez, Deputy Head Of The Information Technology Department at CERN and Pippa Wells, Inner Detector System Project Leader at the ATLAS Experiment will be keynote speakers.
PIC’s new oil cooling system featured at UAB website
The PIC computer equipment is submerged in tanks filled with mineral oil. The new system may represent up to €140,000 in yearly savings. This cooling system has an average of 40% more efficiency than those in other data centres around the world.
PIC featured on catalan television TV3
The TV channel focuses on the fact that the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona is at position number 20 in the ranking of the most energetically sustainable Universities in the world.
The Port d’Informació Científica (PIC) contributes to reach this goal thanks to its measures to reduce the energetic waste. An example are the oil tanks to maintain computers at a constant temperature. The processors are cooled with an efficiency a 40% better than the normal computers.
10th International dCache Workshop organized by PIC and DESY
PIC and DESY have organized the 10th International dCache Workshop in Barcelona on the 11th and 12th of April.
The goal of dCache is to provide a system for storing and retrieving huge amounts of data, distributed among a large number of heterogenous server nodes, under a single virtual filesystem tree with a variety of standard access methods.
HTCondor and ARC-CE users Workshop
The “HTCondor and ARC-CE users Workshop” was held in ALBA Synchrotron, from from 29 February 2016 to 4 March 2016. The event was organized by ALBA and PIC, and gathered around 70 participants, mainly from Europe, US and Asia.
The workshop was an opportunity for HTCondor users to learn and get help from the HTCondor and ARC developers and experts. Many sites transitioning to HTCondor batch system (such as PIC) and newcomers spent a very productive and successful week.
Students visit PIC!
Around 150 students from secondary schools and IT professional degrees have visited PIC on several occasions during February 2016. This activity is organised by the UAB and the ESCOLAB program, an initiative of the Barcelona City Council, in which PIC takes part since 2011. About 2000 students have visited PIC since.
During these outreach events the students learn about the scientific foundations of the main areas of research at PIC as well as the fundamental role of Information Technology in Science. By exploring the largest Grid computing facility in Spain, the students realise about the important role that computing plays in modern scientific endeavour. These visits are hosted by J. Flix (coordinator), A. Pérez-Calero, J. Carretero, among other PIC members.
If you want to visit PIC, you can ask for more information here.
The Large Tape User Group in Europe
Oracle is pleased to be lead sponsor of the 7th annual Large Tape User Group (LTUG) event in Europe, which will be held in Barcelona, Spain on 7th/8th October, 2015. In addition to LTUG, we’ll also be hosting a Media and Entertainment session for members of our Front Porch community.
Casa Convalescència in Barcelona will be the location for the meeting. Along with our hosts, Port d’Informació Científica (PIC), LTUG is also pleased to welcome Barium Ferrite Technology as co-sponsor.
About LTUG
LTUG provides users of Oracle’s very large StorageTek robotic tape libraries and storage devices with a forum to discuss common concerns and issues related to running very large data centers. The group works to provide an environment where members feel comfortable in talking to one another, to Oracle management and to Oracle Engineers. LTUG is a members−only conference, so attendees must apply for membership to attend the event.
To learn more about LTUG, please go to ioug.org/ltug. To apply for membership, first apply for “Associate Membership” at ioug.org, then request to join LTUG.
First light for the PAU camera
The camera for the PAU (Physics of the Accelerating Universe) project has been successfully installed on the William Herschel telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma during the day of June 3rd, has seen its first light that same night and has finished its commissioning today. This instrument is specially designed to measure with precision the distance to galaxies in order to study how the Universe is expanding ever more rapidly under the influence of the mysterious dark energy which makes of 70% of it.
L’LHC torna a posar-se en funcionament
Després de dos anys de treballs en l’accelerador de partícules LHC (Large Hadron Collider) al CERN, la comunitat científica de l’LHC inicia un nou període de presa de dades.
Durant el temps que el Gran Col·lisionador d’Hadrons ha estat en “Long Shutdown 1” o manteniment, s’han consolidat unes 10.000 connexions elèctriques entre els imants. S’han afegit sistemes de protecció d’imants, i els sistemes de criogènia, buit i electrònica han estat millorats i reforçats. A més, els feixos es configuraran de manera que produiran més col·lisions, en empaquetar els protons més a prop els uns dels altres i reduir el temps entre paquets de 50 a 25 nanosegons.
Comença, doncs, un segon cicle de vida per a l’LHC, on operarà a una energia sense precedents de 6,5 TeV per feix, gairebé el doble de l’anterior temporada. Amb les col·lisions entre protons a 13 TeV previstes abans de l’estiu, els experiments de l’LHC entraran aviat en territori desconegut.
El mecanisme de Brout-Englert-Higgs, la matèria fosca, l’antimatèria i el plasma de quarks i gluons formen part d’aquest segon cicle de funcionament de l’LHC. Després del descobriment del bosó de Higgs el 2012, els físics de l’LHC volen sotmetre el model estàndard de física de partícules a les seves proves més exigents, buscant una nova física més enllà d’aquesta teoria ben establerta, que descriu les partícules elementals i les seves interaccions.
El Port d’Informació Científica (PIC), que pertany a l’IFAE i es troba situat a la UAB, forma part del projecte LHC Computing Grid com a Tier1, rebent dades de les transferències d’informació de l’LHC des del CERN (Tier0) i intercanviant informació amb els Tier2 per als experiments. Per fer aquestes connexions, que requereixen una gran amplada de banda, disposa d’un circuit dedicat de 10 Gbps DWDM a l’Anella Científica per connectar-se de manera directa amb el CERN via l’LHCOPN (que connecta el Tier0 amb els 13 Tier1).
A més, disposa d’un enllaç d’1 Gbps DWDM pel qual passa el backup i una altra línia d’1 Gbps a través de la xarxa del proveïdor (Orange) com a backup, en cas que les dues connexions anteriors caiguessin. Pel que fa a la connexió amb RedIRIS, a més de donar continuïtat a l’LHCOPN amb un enllaç de 10 Gbps, existeix un altre enllaç de 10 Gbps per a la xarxa LHCONE (que s’utilitza per connectar els Tier1 amb els Tier2).
Durant l’aturada de l’LHC, el tràfic de l’Anella Científica va disminuir, passant dels 29 TB als 27 TB el 2013 i es preveu que torni a augmentar considerablement durant aquest 2015 amb la nova posada en marxa de l’LHC.