The High Energy Physics (HEP) Research Computing Group at the University of Victoria is actively engaged in a variety of projects for the analysis of data from particle physics experiments as well as providing advice to researchers in other fields.
Our areas of expertise include high-speed networks, management of large scale data storage, virtualization, grid and cloud computing. Our current activities include:
We have set a new world record for data transfer, helping to usher in the next generation of high-speed network technology. At the SuperComputing 2011 (SC11) conference in Seattle during mid-November, the international team transferred data in opposite directions at a combined rate of 186 gigabits per second (Gbps) in a wide-area network circuit. Using a 100-Gbps circuit set up by Canada's Advanced Research and Innovation Network (CANARIE) and BCNET, a non-profit, shared IT services organization, the team was able to reach transfer rates of 98 Gbps between the University of Victoria Computing Centre located in Victoria, British Columbia, and the Washington State Convention Centre in Seattle. With a simultaneous data rate of 88 Gbps in the opposite direction, the team reached a sustained two-way data rate of 186 Gbps between two data centers, breaking the team's previous peak-rate record of 119 Gbps set in 2009. The web page for the project is SC2011 100G Demo
HEPnet/Canada provides support for wide area networking in High Energy and Nuclear physics research across Canada. HEPnet/Canada and CANARIE have established a lightpath network for ATLAS computing facilities in Canada. In addition, HEPnet/Canada is helping manage the Grid Canada Certificate Authority.
The ATLAS project is an international experiment situated at the LHC collider facility at CERN in Geneva. An ATLAS Tier 2 computing facility is hosted at the University of Victoria's Research Computing Facility.
The BaBar project is an international physics collaboration based at the SLAC National Laboratory at Stanford University. The University of Victoria Research Computing Facility is used to generated simulated data and provide an environment where users can access data from the BaBar detector for physics analyses.
Our group has been active in studies of grid, virtualization and cloud computing for HEP. We have developed computational grids, studied virtualization for HEP applications and are currently exploring the use of clouds for HEP computing.
We view our development of a distributed cloud (grid of clouds) using our cloud scheduler as a way to minimize the carbon emissions from research computing.
HEP projects use complex data structures and software tools that are (too) dependent on the underlying hardware and operating system. Projects that are no longer recording particle collision data would like to retain the ability to analyze the data for many years. We believe virtualization and cloud computing are a solution to this problem.
We are collaborating with researchers at the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria and the NRC in Ottawa to add computational grid computing capability to the SAFORAH Forestry Data Grid.
The Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomical Research Project aims to adapt existing Canadian scientific computing facilities to make virtual collaborations more productive for Canadian university astronomers. Our group is providing expertise in virtualization and cloud computing environment to the CANFAR Project.
This project (led by Prof. H. Muller, UVIC Computer Science) investigates the use of control system loops within the autonomic architecture to manage distributed resources such as those used in grid and cloud systems. Distributed management capabilities focus on adaption and tuning techniques from which improvements in performance and cost may be gained.