Data Preparation for NA62

Abstract

In 2017, NA62 recorded over a petabyte of raw data, collecting around a billion events per day of running. Data are collected in bursts of 3-5 seconds, producing output files of a few gigabytes. A typical run, a sequence of bursts with the same detector configuration and similar experimental conditions, contains 1500 bursts and constitutes the basic unit for offline data processing. A sample of 100 random bursts is used to make timing calibrations of all detectors, after which every burst in the run is reconstructed. Finally the reconstructed events are filtered by physics channel with an average reduction factor of 20, and data quality metrics are calculated. Initially a bespoke data processing solution was implemented using a simple finite state machine with limited production system functionality. In 2017, the ATLAS Tier-0 team offered the use of their production system, together with the necessary support. Data processing workflows were rewritten with better error-handling and I/O operations were minimised, the reconstruction software was improved and conditions data handling was changed to follow best practices suggested by the HEP Software Foundation conditions database working group. This contribution describes the experience gained in using these tools and methods for data-processing on a petabyte scale experiment.