Networking experts from around the world discussed the current status and development of data transfers from the LHC accelerator at CERN and other scientific experiments requiring large data transfers. During the LHCOPN-LHCONE meeting at the Institute of Physics on 18-19 April, more than 70 experts met physically and virtually and agreed on the need to expand the use of IPv6 and strengthen network connections to meet the needs of large projects.
Over the dedicated and shared LHCOPN-LHCONE networks, 567 PB of data have been exported from CERN in the last 12 months, an average of more than 1.5 PB of data per day. In a record period in early April, 1 PB of data was copied to the grid centre at the Institute of Physics in less than 3 days. These high transfer speeds are made possible by the dedicated 100 Gbps connection of the FZU to the European GEANT network implemented by CESNET.
Apart from LHC experiments, the LHCONE network is also used by other particle and astroparticle projects with Czech participation, such as the Belle2 project at the Japanese KEK accelerator, the DUNE project detecting neutrinos from the Fermilab accelerator or the Pierre Auger Observatory measuring cosmic ray showers in Argentina.
The meeting, organised by the FZU and CESNET, was followed by a one-day SIG-NGN (Next Generation Network) workshop, where experts discussed networks for data transmission of future large projects.
