Computer network system with security for a protein data collection system at the Photon Factory

In 1997 the prefabricated house of the TARA Sakabe project was constructed very near to the Photon Factory ring, and many computers were installed for crystallographic data handling. A data server with high speed and large capacity was required to improve the efficiency of the protein data collection system which integrated a `high'-security computer network. The new network, based on a 100 Mbps Ethernet, consists of a DEC AlphaServer 4000 with a 115 Gbytes RAID disk, DLT as a backup device, CISCO PIX-32 as a firewall between the TARA private network and KEK, and a 100 Mbps switching hub to be linked to imaging-plate readers and workstations. Therefore, the digital output data from the imaging-plate reader are directly recorded on the server disk resulting in higher efficiency of the users' beam time. In contrast to recording on tape, there is very little problem with backup resulting in a high confidence in the data-collection system.