Challenging the challenge: handling data in the Gigabit/s range

Anticic, T.; Baud, J. P.; Carena, F.; Carena, W.; Collignon, M.; Collin, F.; Couturier, B.; Divia`, R.; Durand, J. D.; Favretto, D.; Jouanigot, J. M.; Marin, J. C.; Mohanty, A. K.; Panzer-Steidel, B.; Polichtchouk, B.; Rademakers, F.; Renshall, H.; Schossmaier, K.; Schulz, M.; Vyvre, P. Vande; Vascotto, A.

Challenging the challenge: handling data in the Gigabit/s range

Authors

Description

The ALICE experiment at CERN will propose unprecedented requirements for event building and data recording. New technologies will be adopted as well as ad-hoc frameworks, from the acquisition of experimental data up to the transfer onto permanent media and its later access. These issues justify a careful, in-depth planning and preparation. The ALICE Data Challenge is a very important step of this development process where simulated detector data is moved from dummy data sources up to the recording media using processing elements and data-paths as realistic as possible. We will review herein the current status of past, present and future ALICE Data Challenges, with particular reference to the sessions held in 2002 when - for the first time - streams worth one week of ALICE data were recorded onto tape media at sustained rates exceeding 300 MB/s.
Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 9 pages, PDF. PSN MOGT007