CMS Centre at CERN

A new "CMS Centre" is being established on the CERN Meyrin site by the CMS collaboration. It will be a focal point for communications, where physicists will work together on data quality monitoring, detector calibration, offline analysis of physics events, and CMS computing operations.

Construction of the CMS Centre begins in the historic Proton Synchrotron (PS) control room.

The historic Proton Synchrotron (PS) control room, Opened by Niels Bohr in 1960, will be reused by CMS to built its control centre.

TThe LHC@FNAL Centre, in operation at Fermilab in the US, will work very closely with the CMS Centre, as well as the CERN Control Centre. (Photo Fermilab)

The historic Proton Synchrotron (PS) control room is about to start a new life. Opened by Niels Bohr in 1960, the room will be reused by CMS to built its control centre. When finished, it will resemble the CERN Control Centre for LHC operations, located in Prevessin.

The centre will include a main room with computing consoles for 25-50 people and more than 100 monitoring screens. Surrounded by meeting rooms, an outreach room, a rest area and utility space, the CMS Centre complex covers a total area of 570 sq. m (6000 sq. ft). Computing and sub-detector offline personnel, the centre’s main users, are being relocated to neighbouring buildings.

«The centre will be the focal point for CMS offline data quality monitoring, calibrations, and rapid "express-line" data analysis », explains Lucas Taylor the CMS Centre Project Manager. It will host offline software teams of trigger and detector experts who will carry out systematic data quality monitoring of very recent CMS data in close communication with the CMS Control Room. The computer displays of the CMS Centre in Cessy will mirror those in the CMS Control Room. This will enable physicists in Meyrin to follow the status of CMS data-taking, reduce congestion in the Control Room and reduce the time wasted travelling between Meyrin and Cessy.

The CMS Offline Computing Operations team will also be located at the CMS Centre. They are responsible for coordinating the CMS data storage at CERN, distributing data to the Grid and operating core services such as software testing and distribution, and database administration.

The LHC@FNAL centre, which is already in operation at Fermilab in US, will work very closely with the CMS Centre, as well as the CERN Control Centre. The CMS teams at CERN and Fermilab will share responsibility for some of the offline tasks and take advantage of the seven hour time difference to help achieve round-the-clock coverage for key CMS activities. Some other off-site centres similar to the LHC@FNAL may also be established.

Civil engineering of the CMS Centre began one month ago and will be completed in November 2007, after which the IT systems will be installed. The full CMS Centre will be ready for general use in March 2008, in time for first collisions at the LHC.