High rate packets transmission on ethernet LAN using commodity hardware

Author

Barczyk, A. ; Bortolotti, D. ; Carbone, A. ; Dufey, J.P. ; Galli, D. ; Gaidioz, B. ; Gregori, D. ; Jost, B. ; Marconi, U. ; Neufeld, N. ; Peco, G. ; Vagnoni, V.

Author_Institution

Ist. Nazionale di Fisica Nucl., Bologna, Italy

Volume

53

Issue

3

fYear

2006

fDate

6/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

810

Lastpage

816

Abstract

We report on measurements performed to test the reliability of high rate data transmission over copper Gigabit Ethernet for the LHCb online system. High reliability of such transmissions will be crucial for the functioning of the software trigger layers of the LHCb experiment, at the CERN´s LHC accelerator. The technological challenge in the system implementation consists of handling the expected high data throughput of event fragments using, to a large extent, commodity equipment. We report on performance evaluations (throughput, error rates and frame drop) of the main components involved in data transmission: the Ethernet cable, the PCI bus and the operating system (the latest kernel versions of Linux). Three different platforms have been used.

Keywords

computer network reliability; data acquisition; data communication; local area networks; packet switching; trigger circuits; CERNs LHC accelerator; Ethernet LAN; Ethernet cable; LHCb online system; Linux; PCI bus; commodity hardware; copper Gigabit Ethernet; data acquisition; data communication; data transmission; operating system; packets transmission; reliability; software trigger layers; Copper; Data communication; Error analysis; Ethernet networks; Hardware; Large Hadron Collider; Local area networks; Performance evaluation; System testing; Throughput; Data acquisition; data communication; farm; gigabit Ethernet; information rates; trigger;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2006.874546

Filename

1644946