CERN expands data center capacity and cloud computing access

Ars Technica : CERN’s original data center for handling the data created by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is located in Geneva and is limited to 3.5 MW of power because of the amount the LHC itself draws. The 11 000 servers are primarily used to provide virtual machines to CERN scientists working with LHC data. To expand capacity, CERN opened a second data center, with 700 servers, in Budapest in January. Tim Bell, CERN’s infrastructure manager, expects the 2.7-MW data center will hold 5000 of the servers by 2015, which will bring CERN’s total to 16 000. The final goal will be to have 150 000 virtual machines using OpenStack , an open-source platform for developing infrastructure-as-a-service cloud networks. The new infrastructure will greatly speed the creation of custom virtual machines for CERN scientists. OpenStack will allow both data centers to be managed from a single location and automate a lot of the customization and configuration tasks.