Synopsis of IRIS
STFC supports a very diverse set of very data intensive Science Activities. A non-exhaustive list of some of these are:
- The Diamond Light Source
- The ISIS Neutron Source
- The Central Laser Facility
- The Large Hadron Collider and its experiments (ATLAS,CMS,LHCb,ALICE)
- The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
- The Square Kilometre Array
- The EUCLID Satellite
- The LIGO Gravitational Wave detector
- The Lux-Zeplin dark matter experiment
- The Cherenkov Telescope Array
- The DUNE and HyperK neutrino and other particle physics experiments
and STFC works closely with the CCFE fusion activity in Culham supported by EPSRC.
All of these activities require a substantial “eInfrastructure” – to manage, preserve, analyse and simulate their data. Such eInfrastructure includes both the physical infrastructure (HPC and HTC computing resource, disk and tape storage), and the software infrastructure needed to run upon it to enable science data processing.
This eInfrastructure is provided by several Provider Entities:
- STFC Scientific Computing Department
- STFC Hartree Centre
- STFC Ada Lovelace Centre
- DiRAC
- GridPP
- The DLS Computing Department
- CCFE computing
IRIS is first and foremost is self-formed coordination body consisting of all of these Science Activities and the Provider Entities which together we call its Partners.
Secondly IRIS is well placed to prepare advice and represent the eInfrastructure needs of the science at all levels. IRIS will from time to time prepare position papers to argue for resources.
Finally, IRIS benefits from a capital grant which we call IRIS4x4 – this is used to commission physical eInfrastructure resources at its Provider Entities which are available to all IRIS Partners.