Current experiments in high energy physics produce unprecedented amounts of data. The ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC records several GB/s to permanent storage. The experiments are run by multinational collaborations, ALICE having around 1000 members from four continents. The final data analysis is a global effort, involving both researchers and computers distributed around the world. Grid systems are developed to make all available computing resources appear as one logical entity, hiding very heterogenous hardware configurations from the average user.
The ALICE grid is operated through the AliEn grid middleware. Grid resources in Scandinavia are organised through a distributed Tier-1 centre, operated by the Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration. This centre operates using ARC as internal middleware. Research at Bergen University College investigates use of virtual machines as a technique to interface between these two middleware systems. The research group is also involved in development of readout electronics for several ALICE detector systems, including acquisition and monitoring software. In order to arrive at the mentioned data rate, several compression and selection techniques are applied. The development of the second version of the Readout Control Unit is coordinated from Bergen University College.