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Archive for June, 2010

Videos: The Physics and Experiments at the LHC

Friday, June 11th, 2010

CSCS is operating an HPC system for the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics (CHIPP), which is used to analyze the data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment at CERN.

CSCS asked CHIPP to organize an internal one day workshop to present the physics, the experiments and the accelerator at the LHC as well. The morning session was mostly dedicated to a general introduction of the LHC experiment and particle physics. The afternoon session was dedicated to a description of the experiments (CMS, ATLA, LHCb) that are relevant for CSCS.

CSCS has been impressed by the presentations given by CHIPP collaborators. In a very clear way they introduced us to the world of particle physics and of modern colliders and detectors. We are very happy and honored to be able to share with you the recordings of the presentations. They give us an insight in one of the most challenging experiments ever done on Earth, with the largest instrument created on this planet.

We start by publishing the first three introductory presentations of the morning that give an impressive overview on LHC and particle physics. You have in any case to have a look to the first presentation of Prof. Christoph Grab (ETH Zurich) introducing us in the world of particle physics. Then Szymon Gadomski (University of Geneva) explains the LHC experiments and their properties. Finally Michele Weber (Laboratorium für Hochenergiephysik-Universitaet Bern) explains what accelerators are and how they work.

To view the presentations you need Quicktime. Just click on the picture or follow the link underneath for download options (e.g. for you iPhone).

Particle Physics at LHC – an overview

Christophorus Grab (Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich/ETH (ETH))

  1. The Standard Model of particle physics (SM)
  2. The LHC physics program
  3. Why do we want it
  4. What do we want and hope to measure
  5. Why does it take some time to do this

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CHIPP Phoenix Phase C Now Fully Operational

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

CSCS is happy to announce that the Phase C of the Phoenix cluster of CHIPP has being put fully operational this Tuesday. At the same time Phase B has been switched off and is being decommissioned.

The cluster Phoenix is being used to analyze as Tier 2 the data being produced by the LHC experiment at CERN in Geneva. The old compute nodes will be transferred to Swiss universities and used in Tier 3 environments.

We wish the researchers of CHIPP and Cern gut luck in the search of new subatomic particles.

In the next pictures you see the Phoenix sysadmins dismantling the old hardware.

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CRAY XT5 code porting workshop

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Last July CSCS organized a Cray XT5 code porting workshop with representatives of Cray Inc. and of the University of Zurich.

Now the different presentation are available online on the multimedia portal of ETH Zurich.

We are sorry for the low quality of the videos. We will soon publish other workshops in a higher video quality.

Follow-up second hpc-ch forum on OS and Installation Methods at EPFL

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

The second hpc-ch forum on operating systems and installation methods at EPF Lausanne on May 20 has been a great success with more than 35 HPC participants.

In the morning we have been welcomed to EPFL by Vittoria Rezzonico (sysadmin and local organizer) and Jean-Claude Berney (director of the IT services). Jean-Claude pointed out the importance of HPC for EPFL and the growing infrastructure needs to run the supercomputers. He also acknowledged the importance of our community giving the possibility to exchange knowledge between peers in Switzerland.

Vittoria organized for us site visits to the technical infrastructure and computing room at EPFL. Every think was very impressive and show how complex it is today to run data centers.

In later postings we will publish the slides presented in the different technical talks.

In different visits we had also a look to the technical infrastructure and the different computer room (both very impressive).

We would like to thank Vittoria Rezzonico and all the team at EPFL for the organization and hosting us.

Here below you will find some pictures of the day.

(Some) participants to the forum:

Vittoria in HER computer room:

Pascal giving information about the  IBM Blue Gene he is in charge of:

The diesel generator:

The batteries for the USP:

CSCS Awarded by HPC Advisory Council at ISC’10

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

The HPC Advisory Council awarded CSCS during the closing session at the ISC 2010 conference in Hamburg as organization who demonstrated above and beyond HPC outreach/education.  CSCS organized last March the HPC Advisory Council Switzerland Workshop 2010 in Lugano. The workshop has been a great success with more than 100 HPC professionals attending the conference. CSCS will host a similar conference in 2011

The prize of the HPC Advisory Council has been received by Hussein Harake  who has beein the initiator of the conference at CSCS (see picture here below).