CERN says EU data protection laws are hindering cloud adoption

Speaking at the Cloud ComputingCloud Computing World Forum in London this week, Bob Jones, head of CERN openlab, said that the European Commission's failure to push through clear guidelines for data protection in the cloud was hindering uptake within the scientific community Alles zu Cloud Computing auf CIO.de

"We are working with high-tech companies, industrial companies and European agencies, and the key point is the regulatory framework is creating a barrier," said Jones.

The benefits of cloud computing are not lost on CERN. The organisation's existing European data centres currently manage up to 15 petabytes of data a year over 100,000 CPUs, but that only represents 20% of the total data generated by its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerator.

In reality, the LHC's four major experiments - Atlas, LHCb, ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) and Compact Muon Solenoid - generate around a petabyte of raw data per second but only about one percent of that is stored, said Bob Jones, head of CERN openlab, speaking at the Cloud Computing World Forum in London.

CERN is keen to explore how the cloud can help it deal with its big data problem, hence its involvement in "Helix Nebula - the Science Cloud," launched earlier this year.