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CERN Gets Reliable Data Access Down to a Science Using Terracotta
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Functions
- Discrete Manufacturing
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Predictive Maintenance
- Process Control & Optimization
Services
- System Integration
- Software Design & Engineering Services
The Challenge
Physicists at CERN conduct extensive experiments using particle accelerators. A variety of process visualization and control systems is used to monitor the equipment, including the TIM system and Diagnostics and Monitoring (DIAMON). TIM monitors around 120,000 sensors in such areas as building services engineering, while DIAMON monitors some of the equipment and IT components related to the particle accelerators. Technicians and engineers at the control stations have dashboards that show the status of the systems; the dashboards are continuously updated based on the data from the monitoring systems. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance to CERN to operate the monitoring platforms in the most fail-safe way possible. Because these systems play the role of a control center, unexpected occurrences, power outages and major accidents result in a large number of events. One of the requirements for the implementation was that the incoming data could be processed in less than one second. Even during the greatest peaks, the infrastructure must be stable enough to handle the large number of status messages and help the staff in the control center and engineers troubleshooting the systems.
About The Customer
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world’s largest particle physics research center. Scientists from around the world conduct high-energy physics experiments at CERN using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator and other equipment. Twenty member states and about 3,200 employees make it possible to analyze groundbreaking research projects on subjects such as the structure of matter. The organization operates a variety of process visualization and control systems to monitor the equipment, including the Technical Infrastructure Monitoring (TIM) system and Diagnostics and Monitoring (DIAMON).
The Solution
To achieve the necessary high level of availability and robustness, the CERN IT team developed the CERN Control and Monitoring Platform (C2MON), a redundant cluster solution for operating any monitoring platform. TIM and DIAMON are the first two systems to be implemented on the new high-availability solution. One of the central components of C2MON is Terracotta BigMemory, Software AG’s in-memory data fabric solution. Terracotta BigMemory provides a high-performance in-memory store that is shared by the cluster solution’s servers and reliably handles even the highest traffic. Terracotta provides distributed in-memory storage for the server systems in the cluster solution, which has been active since the beginning of 2012. Based on the C2MON architecture, the TIM and DIAMON platforms operated throughout 2012 without any significant downtime. The high performance of Terracotta’s in-memory solution also accelerated the overall system’s response times. In addition, CERN’s IT team is now able to add patches and new products to C2MON without interrupting central monitoring services.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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