As Science reported last month (subscription required), CERN's IT department quickly realized that no known data center could handle the amount of information the LHC would create. It was not even clear that Geneva's power grid could supply the energy necessary to run this massive data center. In addition, most of the money for the LHC project was going toward the collider itself, so that very little funding was left for the actual computing resources.

In order to distribute this data, CERN relies on dedicated 10Gbit/s fiber-optic lines that connect CERN with the 11 Tier-1 data centers on the grid. The Tier-1 data centers (pdf) will do some processing, but will also function as the main archives for the LHC data. These Tier-1 centers then farm out a large part of the actual data crunching to the Tier-2 data centers spread around the world. The Tier-2 centers are connected to the grid via regular, public Internet connections.

Large Hadron Collider @ Home

While grid computing has been around for quite a while now and has been implemented successfully on the public Internet by projects like SETI@home or Folding@home, CERN's grid is most likely the largest and most powerful grid established for scientific research so far.

CERN has also set up a project similar to Folding@home called (somewhat unimaginatively) LHC@home, which, thanks to the current shut-down of the LHC does not have much to do right now, but will allow individuals to contribute to CERN's efforts by donating computing time on their own computers.

Image of CERN Computer Center used courtesy of CERN.

In existence since November 2004, the World Community Grid has contributed to projects like the "Genome Comparison Project" and the "Cure Muscular Dystrophy" project. Currently, the "Help Cure Cancer" project aids scientists who are studying proteins that have a functional relationship with cancer. By improving X-ray crystallography, researchers may be able to determine the structure and nature of many cancer-related proteins faster.

With today's focus on global warming, another project - the "African Climate Change" study - is a timely effort that will serve as a basis for understanding how the climate will change in the future. With the data provided by this project, measures designed to alleviate the adverse effects of climate change can be implemented.

Other projects involve discovering Dengue drugs, Human Proteome Folding (to better understand protein function), and fighting AIDS.

To participate, you begin by filling out this online form, then you just download and install the free, secure software the organization provides. No additional steps are necessary unless you want to tweak the settings to only run as a screensaver. Computers running the agent in screensaver mode get to watch as proteins are analyzed. Each work unit displayed is a photo of a protein crystallization experiment. The grid agent performs a computer vision analysis of the image in order to interpret its contents.

There are agents for Mac, PC, and Linux available, so everyone can participate.

As of today, the organization boasts 351,227 members contributing a total of 864,291. SETI@Home, one the other hand, has 3 million plus members. Although perhaps not quite as exciting as finding a real live E.T., the World Community Grid offers the possibility of having an measurable impact in the world of science. And besides, the next time someone asks you what you're doing while you're idly channel surfing from your La-Z-Boy, you can answer with confidence, "I'm helping cure cancer."