Now that is tech put to use..!!

I would be surprised if you haven't heard of CERN. It is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, and incidentally, is also the place where the WWW was born.

Well, currently, the flagship project of CERN is the Large Hadron Collider(LHC). It is due for its final launch in 2007. Get this.. When it launches, the LHC will be the most data intensive physics instrument on the planet. It will pose one of the biggest data storage and processing problems of all time. When operational, it is expected to produce 1500 mega-bytes of data every second for about a decade. It'll take a global grid spread across Europe and US to house and process this data. Brilliant testament to modern science and technology..!!!

About 2 weeks ago, the LHC passed its second service challenge. A total of 4 such challenges have been slated before its final launch. This test managed to sustain about 1/3rd of the max data rate of the eventual LHC, reaching peaks of around 800 MBps. This test lasted about 10 days.

The next test is scheduled for start sometime this summer, and is expected to last 3 months. For more information on the LHC Grid project follow this link.