Enabling Grid technologies for simulating the Planck LFI simulated mission

Planck, the ESA satellite aimed at mapping the microwave sky through two complete sky surveys, will fly in 2007. It is a space mission that is extremely demanding in terms of computing power and data storage. PLANCK simulations mimic the whole mission starting from a virtual sky (ideal or "contaminated" by introducing several noise sources). Most of the related software is already installed at the two Planck DPCs (HFI and LFI). Its main goal is validation of the pipeline modules that will be used to build the data reduction pipelines during the operative phase of the mission. The software can also be profitably used to face the challenging computing power and data storage requirements and also during the pre-launch phase of the mission. Grid, the new technology that enables the distribution and sharing of computing power and data storage capacity over a geographical network, seems to be a promising answer to Planck data storage and processing needs. In the framework of the Italian, LCG based, Grid infrastructure at INFN, we managed to run a number of experiments aimed at defining an application specific environment for the PLANCK simulation software and at distributing on the Grid the produced simulated data. Such experiments have proved that the "gridification" of Planck pipelines is not only possible but is extremely convenient in terms of data processing speed and available data storage as is well illustrated in this paper.