The Computing Group was established in August 2003
in NCP. Initially six IT professional were working in this group. Later two groups Central Computing Facility (CCF) and Advanced Scientific Computing (ASC) were
formed to enhance the service level. CCF group was made to
facilitate the NCP users and Physics Researchers in term of computing
resources. ASC group is to develop in house software and to
up keep the WLCG node.
In the
beginning Centre has modest clusters for 20 PCs based on Linux operating system. This PC cluster can be used for solving any difficult and computationally intense scientific problems. In some cases, it is a replacement of a super computer. Number of PCs in the cluster are increasing since the
beginning. At present, the PC cluster is used for the LHC data analysis and simulation. The whole system is scalable and in future another 450 PCs and servers will be added in this cluster. The data size per year expected from LHC is around one million giga-bytes. The huge size of the data required novel techniques for storage, retrieval and the analysis of the data. The LHC computing is based upon the concept of distributed computing with the tools of data grid technology. The grid is a new emerging concept of computing that will make WWW more intelligent instead of a more search engine. The concept of grid computing will also make the use of computer resources efficient.
The IT Group in NCP consists of following members:
Their primary job is to develop the software for inhouse use and tools for Physics analysis.
List of projects completed and in progress by IT Group is given
below:
The IT Group is
providing corporate services to NCP users including
faculty, staff, researchers and students. They are also responsible
for the overall computing infrastructure of NCP. Services like email
and web are also managed by CCF group. A complete list of services
is given below.
Director Services
(Central Account Management)
Window 2003/2008
Server
Linux LDAP Server
(open LDAP)
Email Server (Exchange
Server 2003/2007)
SMTP Gateway Server
File & Document Server (NFS,
CVS, SAMBA, File Sharing)
