Testing the limits of HTTPS single point third party copy transfer over the WAN

Abstract

LHC data is constantly being moved between computing and storage sites to support analysis, processing, and simulation; this is done at a scale that is currently unique within the science community. For example, the CMS experiment on the LHC manages approximately 200PB of storage across 100 sites and, on a daily basis, moves 1PB between sites via GridFTP as primary protocol. This paper describes the performance results we have achieved by exploring alternatives to the GridFTP protocol for these data movements. In particular the HTTPS third party copy over Xrootd data servers as a possible replacement of GridFTP for LHC big data movements.