Introduction to FUNNEL

What is FUNNEL?

Funnel is the Monte Carlo Production Facility. It allows the ZEUS Detector and Trigger simulations, plus the ZEUS reconstruction program, to be on a large amount of UNIX machines distributed all over the world. Funnel runs in low priority and thus uses all otherwise unused CPU-time.

Here you can find an overview of how the funnel system works. The older version of this document can be found here.

Which programs run in FUNNEL?

Funnel takes an input file (events, lists of particle codes and 4 vectors describing an interaction) and feeds this into three programs:

For a data flow diagram and more details, click here.

Can I use FUNNEL to generate events?

Yes, any member of the collaboration can have events processed through funnel and it is really simple. Instruction for users can be found in the Funnel Users Information page. This page also contains the answers to most questions.

Which platforms are supported?

The current version runs on

Support for DEC Ultrix, IBM AIX, HP, OSF1, IRIX, Solaris versions has been discontinued.

 

Which institutes are running Funnel?

At the moment, Funnel runs on workstations at:

  • Bologna
  • DESY
  • KEK
  • Padova
  • GRID

    • Institutes which used to run funnel in the past:

  • NIKHEF
  • Roma
  • Tokyo/INS
  • U.K., CSF at RAL
  • Warsaw
  • Bonn
  • Krakow
  • McGill
  • Tel Aviv
  • Torino
  • Weizmann

    • The present production capacity is of the order of 5 Million events per week. Click here to see what we produced in the last weeks and months. Unfortunately, the physics groups still need more so if you are not using every CPU cycle on your workstation, click here and read how your workstation can be added to Funnel.

    Where do I find more information?

    Here are the transparancies shown in a seminar about Funnel. And here are the transparencies and the paper presented at CHEP95.

    The L3 collaboration is using the FUL3 to generate Monte Carlo, FUL3 is based on Funnel.

    More information about the ZEUS Monte Carlo chain.

    Day to day news on the Monte Carlo can be found in the news groups DESY.ZEUS.GENERAL or DESY.ZEUS.OFFLINE.

    And if that doesn't answer your question, contact the experts.

    Last update by F.Brasolin, October 2009