CERN, (the European Organisation for

Nuclear Research), is the world's largest

particle physics research laboratory.

Founded in 1954, CERN is situated at the foot

of the Jura Mountains on the borders

between France and Switzerland, northwest

of Geneva. Here scientists and researchers

operate six particle accelerators that are

among the largest scientific instruments

ever built. In these devices, elementary

particles are accelerated to tremendously

high energies and then smashed together.

These collisions, recorded by particle

detectors, give a glimpse of matter, as it was,

moments after the Big Bang.

CERN is funded by 20 member states which

are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech

Republic, Denmark, Finland, France,

Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy,

Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,

Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and

the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the

Russian Federation, the United States of

America, Turkey, the European Commission

and UNESCO have Observer status.

CERN's broad research programme is carried

out by some 6,500 visiting researchers from

more than 80 nations, (which equates to

around half of the world's particle

physicists), who are supported by 2,500

resident staff. Achievements resulting from

CERN s research include the discovery of the

W and Z bosons, (two fundamental particles

of our universe). CERN scientists have also

developed a host of detector and accelerator

technologies, with spin-offs in areas

including medical radiology. In addition to

being the recipient of Nobel Prizes in

physics, CERN researchers also pioneered

the development of the modern Internet:

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide

Web at CERN in the early 1990s to meet the

demand for automatic information sharing

between scientists working in different

universities and institutes around the

world.

Currently in the final stages of construction

at CERN is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

This giant particle accelerator, which will

begin operation in late 2007, is the world s

largest scientific instrument. It will be

housed in a circular underground tunnel

which has a circumference range of 27 km

(16.7 mi), 100 m (320 ft) below CERN s site,

where particles will be accelerated at

practically the speed of light. Such is the

scale of this instrument that the LHC in fact

spans the borders of both France and

Switzerland. This accelerator will generate

vast quantities of computer data, which

CERN will stream to laboratories around

the world for distributed processing. In

February 2006 a trial successfully streamed

1GB per second to seven different sites

across the world.

In addition to housing the world s largest

and most powerful particle accelerator,

CERN also manages the LHC Computing

Grid (LCG) project the world s largest

international scientific grid service, which

will provide access to shared computer

power and data storage capacity over the

Internet and dedicated 10Gbit/s links,

enabling scientists across the globe to

produce, store and analyse an expected 15

Petabytes (15 million Gigabytes) of data

each year.

Back in 2004, while preparations for the

LHC were well underway, CERN s IT

department recognised the need to

revitalise its IT infrastructure, which had to

be capable of managing the data processing

power of this ambitious Computing Grid

project. The Grid project is essentially a

global network of distributed data-

processing resources. For this purpose,

CERN is in the process of setting up a data

centre comprising 6000 PCs, each of which

needs to be connected by reliable, high-

2

Objective:

CERN needed to connect

the world s largest and

most powerful particle

accelerator, and to

network 600 PCs in the

world s largest scientific

computing grid.

Approach:

CERN engaged ProCurve

to provide the ProCurve

Adaptive EDGE

Architecture" strategy,

including 600 units of

the ProCurve 3400cl

switch and 400 units of

ProCurve s award-

winning 3500yl switch.

IT improvements:

"  Process high levels of

information

"  Increased network

security

"  Intelligence required to

manage complex

applications

Business benefits:

"  Low overall cost of

ownership

"  Greater flexibility in

developing new

applications

"  Lifetime warranty

supplied