The Laboratory of Telecommunications and Information Technologies was created in the Institute of Physics of the Earth in 1996 to work on the new challenges for scientific data processing using Internet and World Wide Web. The laboratory is located in the premises of Geophysical Centre RAS, close to Moscow Lomonosov State University, and develops its information infrastructure in close cooperation with the University researchers and IT specialists.

Technically the laboratory is responsible for 24x7 continuous operation of the computer resources of the joint network from CGDS and Geophysical Centre RAS. During the 5 years we have built fast connection to the Moscow Internet backbone (1 Gigabit optical link), high-performance computer cluster (12 Linux nodes, more than 1 Terrabyte disk storage), and extended local area network (about 60 workstations).

Applied scientific applications of the laboratory activities include development of distributed data bases and information systems for scientific data processing. With the help of the World Data Centres system the laboratory is involved in the several international projects developing large scale information products; among them - Space Physics Interactive Data Resource (SPIDR), Satellite Archive and Browse (SABR) system, Environmental Scenario Generator (ESG) and Strong Motions Data Base (SMDB).