Snowmass 2021 Computational Frontier CompF4 Topical Group Report: Storage and Processing Resource Access

TL;DR

This report reviews the current and future state of storage, processing, and networking infrastructure for high energy physics research, emphasizing the need for robust, scalable, and accessible computing resources across various facilities.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of infrastructure needs and recommendations for future high energy physics computing facilities, including hardware, software, and networking.

Findings

Highlighting the importance of scalable storage solutions

Recommending increased investment in networking infrastructure

Identifying gaps in current computing resource accessibility

Abstract

Computing plays a significant role in all areas of high energy physics. The Snowmass 2021 CompF4 topical group's scope is facilities R&D, where we consider "facilities" as the computing hardware and software infrastructure inside the data centers plus the networking between data centers, irrespective of who owns them, and what policies are applied for using them. In other words, it includes commercial clouds, federally funded High Performance Computing (HPC) systems for all of science, and systems funded explicitly for a given experimental or theoretical program. This topical group report summarizes the findings and recommendations for the storage, processing, networking and associated software service infrastructures for future high energy physics research, based on the discussions organized through the Snowmass 2021 community study.