Collaborative Computing Support for Analysis Facilities Exploiting Software as Infrastructure Techniques

Maria Acosta Flechas, Garhan Attebury, Kenneth Bloom, Brian Bockelman, Lindsey Gray, Burt Holzman, Carl Lundstedt, Oksana Shadura, Nicholas Smith, John Thiltges

Read on arXiv

arXiv
2203.10161
Date
2022-03-18
Frontier
Computational Frontier (CompF)
Topical groups
Submitted by
Burt Holzman

Abstract

Prior to the public release of Kubernetes it was difficult to conduct joint development of elaborate analysis facilities due to the highly non-homogeneous nature of hardware and network topology across compute facilities. However, since the advent of systems like Kubernetes and OpenShift, which provide declarative interfaces for building fault-tolerant and self-healing deployments of networked software, it is possible for multiple institutes to collaborate more effectively since resource details are abstracted away through various forms of hardware and software virtualization. In this whitepaper we will outline the development of two analysis facilities: "Coffea-casa" at University of Nebraska Lincoln and the "Elastic Analysis Facility" at Fermilab, and how utilizing platform abstraction has improved the development of common software for each of these facilities, and future development plans made possible by this methodology.