This collaborative proposal comes from the MIT and Rice University groups and requests funds to support the testing and refinement of the Grid-embedded framework, developed under an earlier ITR grant, to support the analysis of large high energy physics datasets. The framework is based on the implementation of the Parallel ROOT Facility (PROOF). The new proposal builds on the developments currently underway and aims at providing a consistent interactive analysis interface over the full range of available computing resources. The main research topics are the optimization of resource discovery and allocation algorithms based on tests in a fully operational prototype environment, and real-time monitoring and fault tolerance and recovery in an interactive environment. Prototypes of the proposed system will be used in the context of physics studies for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), one of the experiments under construction at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The data from this experiment is on the scale of several petabyes per year. This research will be of immediate benefit not only for High Energy and Nuclear Physics, but also for a large number of ROOT-based projects outside of physics, including life sciences and medical applications.
