Total Cost of Ownership and Evaluation of Google Cloud Resources for the ATLAS Experiment at the LHC
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(Published version)
Date
2025
Authors
Aad, G.
Aakvaag, E.
Abbott, B.
Abdelhameed, S.
Abeling, K.
Abicht, N.J.
Abidi, S.H.
Aboelela, M.
Aboulhorma, A.
Abramowicz, H.
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Journal article
Citation
Computing and Software for Big Science, 2025; 9(1):2-1-2-35
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The ATLAS Collaboration
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Abstract
The ATLAS Google Project was established as part of an ongoing evaluation of the use of commercial clouds by the ATLAS Collaboration, in anticipation of the potential future adoption of such resources by WLCG grid sites to fulfil or complement their computing pledges. Seamless integration of Google cloud resources into the worldwide ATLAS distributed computing infrastructure was achieved at large scale and for an extended period of time, and hence cloud resources are shown to be an effective mechanism to provide additional, flexible computing capacity to ATLAS. For the first time a total cost of ownership analysis has been performed, to identify the dominant cost drivers and explore effective mechanisms for cost control. Network usage significantly impacts the costs of certain ATLAS workflows, underscoring the importance of implementing such mechanisms. Resource bursting has been successfully demonstrated, whilst exposing the true cost of this type of activity. A follow-up to the project is underway to investigate methods for improving the integration of cloud resources in data-intensive distributed computing environments and reducing costs related to network connectivity, which represents the primary expense when extensively utilising cloud resources.
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Published online: 28 January 2025
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© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecomm ons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.