Technical Infrastructure
Within the Operations group, the Technical Infrastructure (TI) section operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, monitoring CERNs infrastructure.
We are responsible for the Technical Infrastructure of what are known as machine buildings. These buildings house accelerators, experiments, and other important and critical installations, such as the Computing Centre.
Alarm monitoring
In TI we monitor the CERN infrastructure 24/7, and are one of the only teams that have a permanent year-round presence at CERN.
We monitor alarms for everything from the incoming 400 kV electrical supply to individual circuit breakers, as well as safety systems, cooling and ventilation systems, environmental monitoring stations, access control, and more.
Intervention tracking and fault response
As part of our shift work, not only do we monitor the infrastructure, but we also track maintenance activities on all the systems.
Knowing what is happening on CERN’s technical infrastructure is as important as monitoring it. The TI section keeps a live picture of every ongoing intervention, and takes the lead when something goes wrong outside working hours.
Statistics
Every alarm that reaches the TI desk is qualified, every intervention on CERN’s technical infrastructure is tracked, and every call to the desk is answered. Across a year that adds up to a continuous record of activity.
Those figures show how much the infrastructure really demands of us: how many alarms operators handle, how many interventions run in parallel, how many calls come in, and how all of it evolves across the year.
Second jobs
We work on shift in the CERN Control Centre, ensuring that all technical infrastructure systems run smoothly. Our goal is to continuously increase the availability and reliability of the accelerators at CERN.
Each one of us is specialised in one or more technical areas such as electricity, cooling, ventilation, safety, fire detection, access systems, and communications systems, for which we are responsible for maintaining and updating documentation, procedures, specific training, and developing SCADA views and different tools.
History of TI
TI started life in January 1969 as the Technical Control Room (TCR), controlling the distribution of electricity, compressed air and cooling water across the CERN site.
Consoles, computers and control rooms have all changed since, and in 2006 the TCR was renamed TI and moved into the CERN Control Centre. The role has not. Follow the timeline from the first TCR to the TI desk of today.