Data grid for fusion simulations and experiments Original Research Article

Simulations and experiments in the fusion community generate very large data sets at remote sites. Downloading it to local sites is very time consuming. Visualization and analysis of these data sets is then difficult, as the data comes in different formats. In addition, data analysis and visualization tools vary from site to site. These problems are addressed by a grid service under development at Tech-X. This service will connect heterogeneous data sets coming from simulations and experiments, bring data into well-established analysis tools and provide means to switch between data-transfer protocols, data formats and data analysis tools, thus providing mechanism for data and tools unification and comparison. In this paper we present the motivation, architecture, status of this application and first results of our performance tests comparing different data transfer mechanisms.