PACTES: Platforma de calcul avansat pentru cercetări și tehnologii spațiale și domenii conexe

Advanced Computing Platform for Space Research and Technologies and Related Fields — PACTES

PACTES consists of GRID facilities used by the Institute of Space Science – INFLPR Subsidiary for participation in large international collaborations – ALICE CERN Collaboration (uses the AliEn middleware – a distributed computing environment developed by the Alice Off-line project that offers the ALICE user community around the world transparent access to distributed storage and computing resources; it interfaces with many Grid solutions and provides a native Grid working environment based on the Web Services model, being built on a very large number of open source software components – Globus/GSI, OpenSSL, OpenLDAP, SOAPLite, MySQL, perl – reusing a large part of their functionality as well as on the latest authentication IT standards – PKI, SOAP); Pierre Auger Collaboration; ESA – GRID facilities are used for processing data acquired from astrophysics and cosmology experiments carried out by ESA satellites (EUCLID, PLANCK, LISA, VENUS EXPRESS, CLUSTER II experiments) and ground-based space observation facilities (LOFAR, AUGER, ANTARES, Km3NET), but also for researchers within the institute. The facility operates in a non-stop mode (24/24 hours, 365/365 days).

PACTES possesses service certification documents, issued by authorized bodies, approved by the regulatory authorities in the field. As a partner of the Romanian Tier-2 Federation RO-LCG, ISS benefits from the provisions of the Memorandum of Understanding concluded in 2006 by ANCS with CERN, which certifies the minimum quality level of the services provided by ISS GRID in collaboration with WLCG. The fulfillment of the service quality criteria by ISS is certified by the Memorandum of Understanding for the ALICE collaboration.

Also, the Grid ISS RO-13-ISS site was certificate for the production regime by the European certification bodies (EGI). The certification confirms the satisfaction of the minimum quality level of Grid services that is necessary for integration into the European grid.

PACTES, by providing the technological support necessary for the conduct of advanced research activity, plays an important role in:

• developing international collaboration and supporting participation in programs and projects;
• intensifying scientific ties and collaboration with the Romanian scientific diaspora;
• attracting young doctoral students, post-doctoral researchers, as well as experienced, high-performing researchers, regardless of nationality.

PACTES users are researchers both within the ISS and researchers from the international collaborations Alice-CERN, Pierre Auger, ESA (LISA, Euclid).

PACTES aims for the next period, among other things:

• increasing processing and storage capacity;
• purchasing network equipment for communication at speeds of at least 10 Gbps and increasing external connectivity to 100 Gbps;
• carrying out research activities using the GRID infrastructure which involves the existence and operation in optimal parameters of: air conditioning installations in the data center, electrical power supply installations for IT&C and related equipment, uninterruptible power supply systems (UPS).

Failure to ensure the operation of these installations leads to the degradation of IT&C equipment and electronic components of uninterruptible power supply systems (UPS), which must be permanently maintained in working condition, but also to the degradation of the performance and use of the PACTES installation.

IOSIN PACTES funding is supported by public funds allocated through the state authority for research and development.