The fastest data in the world
In February, deep inside a warehouse at Cern, the Swiss home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – the world’s biggest science experiment – two network engineers held their breath. And pressed a button.
Suddenly, text on a black background flashed up on a screen in front of them. It had worked. “There was high-fiving involved,” recalls Joachim Opdenakker at SURF, a Dutch IT association that works for educational and research institutions. “It was super-cool to see.”
He and his colleague Edwin Verheul had just set up a new data link between the LHC in Switzerland and data storage sites in The Netherlands.
A data link that could reach speeds of 800 gigabits per second (Gbps) – or more than 11,000 times the average UK home broadband speed. The idea is to improve scientists’ access to the results of LHC experiments.
“This transponder that Nokia uses, it’s like a celebrity,” says Mr Verheul, explaining how the kit is booked up for use at various locations in advance. “We had limited time to do tests. If you have to postpone a week, then the transponder is gone.”
