From the Origins of the Universe to Dark Matter, CERN’s ATLAS Experiment Powered by Dell

    *  Michael Dell visits CERN, announces Dell’s support of CERN’s ATLAS Project, a massive particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that seeks to reveal the origins of mass and dark matter
    * Dell to spearhead a technology-industry consortium dedicated to providing ATLAS researchers at 172 universities and laboratories worldwide with industry-standard, high-performance technology (HPC) solutions
    * Dell’s ATLAS technology recommendations to be based on HPC technologies accessible to scientists and researchers at organizations of all sizes

During a visit to the European Organization for Nuclear Research’s (CERN) today, Michael Dell said Dell will help architect and support the high-performance computing IT infrastructure for CERN’s renowned ATLAS particle physics experiment.

The company also will lead an industry consortium dedicated to developing and managing an open IT architecture, including energy and cost-efficient Dell PowerEdge servers, for researchers at ATLAS-affiliated universities worldwide. Led by Dell, the industry group supporting ATLAS includes Intel Corporation and Force10 Networks.

The group’s efforts will include support, guidance and consulting to optimize system configurations, optimal coding practices and best-practice guidelines for compute nodes, servers, storage and networking. It also will facilitate the availability of leading-edge technologies to support the project, which demands analysis of massive amounts of raw detector data.

Alongside the ATLAS experiment, CERN’s LHC is using Dell technology to process, manage and store data at several other critical experiments including the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment and the Large Hadron Collider Beauty experiment.

“State-of-the-art high performance computing, in the form of servers, storage, and networking, provides critical enabling technologies for scientific discovery. The Dell ATLAS Alliance will accelerate the discovery process in particle physics for the worldwide collaboration of ATLAS scientists,” said Dr. Andrew Lankford, Professor, University of California, Irvine and Deputy Spokesperson, ATLAS Experiment, CERN.

“The important work of ATLAS teams around the world has the potential to fundamentally change the way we perceive the origins of the universe. Supporting their mission is a great privilege for Dell, and is consistent with our commitment to providing IT solutions that help enable breakthrough research of this kind,” said Michael Dell, chairman of the board and CEO.