SUNNYVALE, Calif.-September 26,
2012- Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for
Nuclear Research, search for clues that will help unlock the
secrets of the universe. In the quest for answers, scientists
gather mind-boggling amounts of data from the trillions of proton
collisions that occur within four points of CERN's Large Hadron
Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator in the
world. It's from this very same data that scientists in July
uncovered one of the greatest findings ever in particle physics-a
new particle consistent with the long-sought Higgs Boson, a particle that is believed to
give all other particles mass and a finding that people around the
world have been anticipating for more than 50 years.
An agile data infrastructure, such as a
NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP) storage foundation, provides CERN with
the ability to deliver impact faster through more effective search
and data management (Intelligent), achieve nondisruptive operations
(Immortal), and scale without limits to meet the demands of ongoing
particle research (Infinite).
"A primary goal for CERN is to help expand
human understanding of the world we live in," said Tony Cass,
Databases Services Group Leader, IT department, CERN. "The
information that we are searching for is contained within a sea of
data that is equivalent to searching for a needle in 20 million
haystacks. To make these searches a success we require an IT
infrastructure that can store and manage staggering amounts of data
and give us around-the-clock access to it. Oracle® Databases
running on top of NetApp storage are a key element of this
infrastructure."
Since 2006, CERN has leveraged NetApp
technology to help drive innovation and excellence in scientific
discovery. The answers derived from CERN's particle research will
not only help explain the universe around us but also accelerate
advancements in information technology. CERN has achieved amazing
results that include the following.
- LHC experiments create 600 million collisions per second, which
is a raw data rate of 1 million GB/sec. This huge volume of data
must be distributed to physicists to analyze at 140 computing
centers in 35 different countries.
- In addition to NetApp, CERN leverages Oracle Database in
support of the LHC and relies on NetApp to store the data on the
Oracle Database, including one with 4.1 trillion rows of data. This
operational data amounts to more than 50TB per year and is relied
upon by scientists to store the measurements and instrumentation
records needed to calibrate the experiments. NetApp helps provide
the nondisruptive operations and unlimited scalability required to
help CERN accelerate science.
- CERN uses NetApp Flash Cache technology to increase overall
performance and reduce the data center footprint by two times what
would have been required to manage similar technical requirements.
As a result, CERN is able to increase overall efficiencies and
effectively manage its IT operations within its fixed resources.
Supporting Quote
- Dave Hitz, Cofounder and Executive Vice President,
NetApp
"CERN's work is awe inspiring. I mean, the research they do is
addressing many of the universe's questions and is nearly
impossible to understand. CERN leans heavily on technology to aid
in their research, so they are the perfect example for how
important it is to build on the right IT infrastructure. NetApp is
thrilled to provide the storage foundation that helps CERN
accelerate scientific discovery."
Additional Resources
About NetApp
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at www.netapp.com.
Press Contact:
Ryan Lowry
NetApp
(408) 822-7544
ryan.lowry@netapp.com
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