Learn · CERN

Talk28 min

Engineering a Scalable, FAIR Data Infrastructure for Resource-Efficient Research

Irufan Ahmed · CERN

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About

The Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London is addressing the environmental and accessibility challenges of modern research by deploying a scalable repository architecture. This system integrates a custom InvenioRDM interface with Ceph object storage to manage massive computational datasets in alignment with FAIR principles. By leveraging software-defined storage on commodity hardware, the department avoids carbon-intensive "forklift upgrades," allowing for sustainable, incremental capacity growth.

The infrastructure features a self-healing, S3-compatible backend designed to eliminate "dark data" through domain-specific metadata curation. To reduce energy consumption associated with unnecessary network egress, the platform supports flexible retrieval, enabling researchers to inspect granular data subsets rather than downloading entire multi-terabyte files. Ultimately, this ecosystem prevents redundant, energy-heavy re-computations by transforming primary data into a permanent, reusable asset. The proposed talk details the lifecycle of this transition from ad-hoc management to an integrated, environmentally conscious research framework.

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The talk

  1. Engineering a Scalable, FAIR Data Infrastructure for Resource-Efficient Research 2026-05-05 · 28 min · CERN's player

Credits and licence

Institution
CERN
Speaker
Irufan Ahmed
Year
2026
Language
English
Subjects
Mathematics
Source
CERN
Licence
CERN, as CERN states it. CERN's terms
Attribution
© CERN. CERN provides its audiovisual media free of charge for educational and informational use, credited to CERN; this lecture is shown in CERN's own player.
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