Quantum StorNext Software Used by CERN

Quantum Corp. announced that its StorNext file system software scaled more than 100 percent above performance requirements set by CERN, the European organization for nuclear research.

StorNext data management software is used to provide high-performance data access and sharing in a scale-out cluster environment at ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), located within CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland. In preparation for the first lead-ion beam at CERN’s LHC, the ALICE data acquisition system reached speeds up to 4.5 GB/s write and 2.5 GB/s read – or an aggregate of 7 GB/s load on the File System. Typical experiment data speeds peak at 3 GB/s.

Collecting data from collisions among billions of particles requires not only a reliable and scalable IT infrastructure but also an efficient and effective way to record and analyze the billions of bits of data generated every second. The ALICE project, one of the largest experiments in the world devoted to recounting the birth of matter, involves 1,000 physicists, engineers and technicians from 30 countries, resulting in unprecedented demands for data acquisition, selection, transfer, storage and handling. ALICE is one of three LHC experiments that are now recording data from lead-ion collisions to simulate a ‘mini Big Bang’ environment.