CERN Computer Centre

CERN Computer Centre
Name	CERN Computer Centre
Location	Meyrin, Geneva, Switzerland
Established	1959
Coordinates	46.2350°N 6.0550°E
Owner	European Organization for Nuclear Research
Type	Data centre, supercomputing facility
Website	cern.ch

CERN Computer Centre The CERN Computer Centre is the principal data centre and computing hub of the European Organization for Nuclear Research supporting high-energy physics experiments and international scientific collaborations. It hosts large-scale computing resources used by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, provides services to member states including data storage and networking, and coordinates efforts with research infrastructures and national laboratories across Europe and beyond. The Centre integrates supercomputing, grid, cloud, and networking technologies to serve projects from particle physics experiments to distributed research initiatives.

Overview

The Centre provides core computing services for experiments such as ATLAS (particle detector), CMS (particle detector), LHCb, and ALICE, and interoperates with infrastructures like the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, Open Science Grid, and national e-infrastructures including DEISA and PRACE. It hosts resources linked to projects funded by the European Commission, serviced by networks such as GÉANT and ESnet, and coordinated with research facilities such as Fermilab, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, DESY, INFN, CNAF, and KEK. The Centre supports software stacks including ROOT (software), Geant4, HTCondor, and CernVM, and contributes to open-source ecosystems like Linux, Kubernetes, OpenStack, and TensorFlow for scientific computing workflows.

History and Development

From early mainframe installations in the 1950s to modern exascale ambitions, the Centre evolved alongside milestones like the construction of the Large Hadron Collider and discoveries such as the Higgs boson. Early collaborations involved laboratories including Brookhaven National Laboratory and computing pioneers at institutions like CERN member states' computing centres. Expansions were driven by experiments at accelerators like the Super Proton Synchrotron and projects such as the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid and initiatives under the European Strategy for Particle Physics. Partnerships with industry leaders including IBM, Intel, Cisco Systems, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NVIDIA, and Google influenced hardware and software procurement, while standards groups like the Open Grid Forum and Internet Engineering Task Force shaped interoperability.

Facilities and Infrastructure

The Computer Centre occupies secure halls with redundant power supplied by providers including regional utilities and onsite substations connected to the CERN Meyrin site. It contains high-density racks populated with servers from manufacturers such as HPE, Dell EMC, Lenovo, and Supermicro running processors from Intel and AMD and accelerators from NVIDIA and AMD. Storage systems use technologies associated with vendors like NetApp, Dell EMC Isilon, and open systems such as Ceph and Lustre. Cooling systems are engineered in concert with companies like Schneider Electric and energy initiatives aligned with the Geneva Canton and Swiss energy authorities. Networking neutral points link to GÉANT, RENATER, SURFnet, and commercial carriers, with backbone interconnects employing technologies promoted by Juniper Networks and Arista Networks. The Centre’s physical and virtual infrastructure conforms to standards from organizations like ISO and TÜV Rheinland.

Operations and Services

Operational teams provide core services including identity and access managed by systems comparable to LDAP deployments and authentication federations like eduGAIN, job scheduling via HTCondor and Slurm, and data management integrating EOS (CERN storage system), tape libraries interfaced with systems from IBM Spectrum Scale and Quantum Corporation. Services enable distributed analysis for collaborations using tools such as Jupyter, Apache Spark, ROOT (software), and CernVM-FS. The Centre operates monitoring and orchestration using platforms inspired by Prometheus (software), Grafana, ELK Stack, and configuration management like Ansible and Puppet. Support structures collaborate with organizational units such as the ATLAS Collaboration, CMS Collaboration, LHCb Collaboration, and the ALICE Collaboration management boards to schedule resources and coordinate computing models.

Research and Collaboration

The facility participates in research programs with institutions including University of Oxford, CERN Member States' universities, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, University of Geneva, Imperial College London, and international laboratories like Argonne National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. It contributes to multidisciplinary projects spanning data science, machine learning, and distributed computing, collaborating with initiatives like Human Brain Project, Square Kilometre Array, ITER, and European XFEL. The Centre engages with funding and policy entities such as the European Research Council, European Commission Horizon 2020, and national research councils, and participates in standards and research dissemination through conferences like International Conference on High Energy Physics, CHEP (International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics), and publications in journals such as Journal of High Energy Physics and Computing in Science & Engineering.

Security, Sustainability, and Disaster Recovery

Security operations align with best practices from agencies including ENISA and standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, integrating intrusion detection, incident response, and collaboration with CERT teams like CERT-EU and national Computer Emergency Response Teams. Sustainability initiatives coordinate with regional plans from the Canton of Geneva and international commitments like the Paris Agreement, implementing heat recovery, free cooling, and energy efficiency measures pioneered with partners including Schneider Electric and ABB. Disaster recovery and business continuity rely on geographically distributed replicas across Tier-1 centres in networks such as the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, formalized in agreements with sites like GridPP, CC-IN2P3, KIT, TRIUMF, and RRC-KI. Regular exercises involve stakeholders from the European Organization for Nuclear Research governance, member state agencies, and partner laboratories to ensure resilience against natural hazards, cyber incidents, and infrastructure failures.

Category:Data centers Category:European Organization for Nuclear Research