The computing group has two major activities:

• Providing a computing infrastructure to the laboratory (network, data storage, computing nodes.
• The development and deployment of applications for the researchers of the laboratory, and in particular for high energy physics.

Computing Infrastructure

The group must provide computing services for about 230 users. This implies regular support for about 500 machines, supervision of the network and other essential services and, of course providing assistance to users.

The particular characteristics of the service include:

• Innovative air-conditioning; the servers are housed in a room which uses « free-cooling » by a direct intake of outside air.
• The use of Quattor and ansible for a standardized installation of Linux.
• The use of Active Directory is used for the management of Windows machines, and for a centralized authentication of both Linux and Windows.
• The installation of a large number of ressources for data storage and calculation. (Several 42U racks)
• The installation and implementation of a Tier 2 node of the LCG grid for  LHC data processing.
• Support for essential services such as mail, database and the Web.
• Network services – in particular security monitoring.

Development of Applications

The service can provide help in many domains of expertise:

• Programming Languages
  • C, C++, Java, Python, PHP, AJAX, SQL XML, XSLT, Fortran and diverse assembly languages.
• Data Bases
  • ORACLE, mySQL, postgreSQL.
• Programming Techniques
  • Parallel programming, web services, man-machine interfaces, system programming (Linux), real time applications, SYSTEM EMBARQUE ( ?)
• Collaboration tools
  • Version Control: Git;Content Management System: JOOMLA;Integrated Development Environment: Lab Windows/CVI, Eclipse.
  • Software Engineering Methods: UML, Agile.
  • Projet management and Bug tracking: TRAC, MANTIS, REDMINE (forge in2p3).      
  • Software Quality Assurance: Code reviews, specification documents etc.