Commissioning and operation of the vertex locator (VELO) at the LHCb experiment

The Vertex Locator (VELO) of the LHCb experiment consists of two halves each equipped with 23 silicon modules along the beam direction. The detector is mounted in a setup similar to Roman pots. The VELO will offer a powerful tool for primary and secondary vertex reconstruction. In order to achieve this, the detector went through a complete and thorough commissioning phase. This process spans a range of activities: individual module characterization in testbeams, detector integration, system tests and offline alignment procedures. After this extensive commissioning period the LHCb experiment entered a new exciting phase during the year 2008. The experiment saw the first beam! Moreover with data taken in the VELO detector the first LHC induced tracks could be reconstructed.