Jbrodkin brings us a story about the growth of the data processor network supporting CERN's Large Hadron Collider, which will begin smashing particles into one another later this year. We've discussed some of the impressive capabilities of this network in the past. "Data will be gathered from the provencal Organization for Nuclear probing (CERN), which hosts the collider in France and Switzerland, and distributed to thousands of scientists in everything the world. One writer described the grid as a 'parallel Internet.' Ruth Pordes, executive boss of the Open Science Grid, which oversees the U.S. footing for the LHC network, describes it as an 'evolution of the Internet.' New fiber-optic cables with special protocols will be used to move data from CERN to 11 Tier-1 sites around the globe, which in turn use standard national pipeline root technologies to transfer the data to more than 150 Tier-2 centers. Worldwide, the LHC calculating grid will be comprised of about 20,000 servers, chiefly running the Linux general expenses costs system. Scientists at Tier-2 sites can access these servers remotely when running complex experiments based on LHC data, Pordes says. If scientists need a million CPU hours to run an try overnight, the distributed nature of the grid allows them to access that calculating power from any part of the worldwide network"

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