Actually they don't . If release of such information would aid nations or groups
hostile to the United States or its allies there is no requirement that it be
released, nor should it be.
I don't know if the rumors of such databases are true. I suspect that they are, but
I am dubious as to whether Oracle is supporting these databases . Perhaps it is not
Oracle as we know it.
We use Objectivity, an object oriented database to store the event data from Babar.
Babar is an experiment looking at a phenomenon known as charged particle (CP)
violation. The physicists are trying figger why matter is favored over antimatter
and by how much.
The amount of data which gets into Objectivity is between 200 and 250 terabytes a
year. One problem is that the data for an interesting event is only a few tens of
kilobytes and they are random. So finding shuch events online, on the redwood tape
drives, in the silos etc is a major headache. We use HPSS, a hierarchical file system
manager
We have batch farms of thousands of low cost UNIX boxes of various makes to process
the data and use IBM's LSF for load balancing. We also have a Sun E10000 as well.
We are also working on the grid. You don't really know where your electricty came
from this morning, should you care where you got your compute cycles or where the data
is stored. That's the idea of the grid. A request may be made by SLAC which has
data shipped from Japan's KEK to be worked on by computers with free compute cycles in
Germany's DESY, and also by Britain's Rutherford Labs, and or Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, and or CERN etc.
I have nothing to do the nitty-gritty of any of this, but just attend some of the
talks. Oracle is used to store information about the experiments, but not of the
event data itself. If some Lab does show that Oracle can be successfully used, I'll
be right in the thick of it.
SuperBabar, if funded woild start in 2009 which means the technology to support an
exabyte database will need to be arounbd by 2007.
Ian MacGregor
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 4:56 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
thats not exactly true.
Since the CIA is a govt agency, they HAVE to tell you that kind of info,
they just dont have to tell you what the data is. But layouts, tuning
recommendations, etc all can be gotten, worst case here in the US, you
can always invoke FOIA(aka Freedom of information act).
joe
Mark Leith wrote:
>
> "I hear rumors of Oracle databases of hundreds of terabytes at the CIA, but
> I have no way to confirm them."
>
> I'm sure a member of their team will knock on your door shortly, just for
> mentioning their name and "data" in the same email - why not ask them then
> :)
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Ian A.
> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 01:00
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
> One of the smaller Physics projects, GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Space
> Telescope) is looking at storing their data in Oracle. The bulk of thge
> data will be a sky map of individual photons, about 20 terabytes, acquired
> at a rate of about 1 TB a year. What size is the largest Oracle database at
> present? I believe Oracle should be able to handle this, but I'd like to
> know if anyone has approached this size. I hear rumors of Oracle databases
> of hundreds of terabytes at the CIA, but I have no way to confirm them.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------------------------------
> Offtopic
>
> I wrote a little while ago about CERN considering Oracle for LHC project,
> and needing a petabyte database. It turns out that the number was
> incorrect. The petabyte that was tossed around a few years ago would be for
> online and secondary storage only. I don't know their needs for tertiary
> storage, but our little project here , called Babar, which is expected to
> store half a petabyte of data in online and nearline storage is sized to
> 300 petabytes when tertiary storage is included. The 0.5 petabytes for
> online and nearline will probably be upped. If LHC has the same relationship
> between tertiary and online/nearline storage, then they will need something
> which can handle about 600 petabytes. Last week I attended a meeting on a
> project called SuperBabar. Data estimates of size for that one are one
> exabyte. I'm sure there are others in the works which will make SuperBabar
> look tiny. The mind boggles.
>
> Babar is not in Oracle and I don't expect SuperBabar will be either.
>
> Ian MacGregor
> Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: MacGregor, Ian A.
> INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
> San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
>
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: Mark Leith
> INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
> San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing)
--
Joe Testa
Performing Remote DBA Services, need some backup DBA support?
For Sale: Oracle-dba.com domain, its not going cheap but feel free to
ask :)
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
--
Author: Joe Testa
INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
--
Author: MacGregor, Ian A.
INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
