Funnel is a Computational Grid
Developed on the LAN, but was quickly moved to the WAN (high CPU, low bandwidth)
- Funnel provides the “middleware” to run the ZEUS simulation/reconstruction programs and interfaces to the ZEUS data management system
- Does Remote Job Execution on Grid nodes
- Establishes Job Execution Environment on Grid nodes
- Has Resource Management and Resource Discovery
- Provides Robust File Replication and Movement
- Uses File Replica Catalogs and Meta Data Catalogs
- Provides to physicists Web-based User Interfaces — “Funnel Portal”
Large organizational impact
- Helped to organize the infrastructure around MC production
- e.g. funnel data base, catalogs for MC productions
- Infrastructure of organized manpower of several FTE, mostly at Universities
Note: This was a purely Experiment-based effort
- E.g. DESY IT not involved in R&D, nor in maintenance & operations
Grid is Useful Technology for HERA Experiments