The CERN-LHC is a high energy particle collider, where intense proton bunches are brought into collision. In order to achieve optimum performance, the bunches must have a high brightness, leading to strong and significant beam-beam effects. Experimental tests during the first two years of its operation have shown that beams with very high brightness can be collided head-on without detrimental effects on the beam dynamics. Such head-on collisions are therefore not expected to limit the LHC performance. Long range beam-beam interactions dominate the adverse effects on the dynamics but can profit from an increased beam brightness, in particular from small emittances. We summarize the experimental results and compare with the theoretical expectations. This allows to optimize the performance for future operation and a definition of promising upgrade scenarios.