Speaker
Dr
Yushu Yao
(LBNL)
Description
ATLAS software has been developed mostly on CERN linux cluster
lxplus[1] or on similar facilities at the experiment Tier 1 centers. The
fast rise of virtualization technology has the potential to change this
model, turning every laptop or desktop into an ATLAS analysis platform. In
the context of the CernVM project[2] we are developing a suite of tools and
CernVM plug-in extensions to promote the use of virtualization for ATLAS
analysis and software development.
The Virtual Machine Logbook (VML), in particular, is an application to
organize physicists¹ work on multiple projects, logging their progress, and
speeding up "context switches" from one project to another. An important
feature of VML is the ability to share with a single "click" the status of a
given project with other colleagues. VML builds upon the save and restore
capabilities of mainstream virtualization software like VMware, and provides
a technology-independent client interface to them. A lot of emphasis in the
design and implementation has gone into optimizing the save and restore
process to makepractical to store many VML entries on a typical laptop disk
or to share a VML entry over the network.
At the same time, taking advantage of CernVM's plugin capabilities, we are
extending the CernVM platform to help increase the usability of ATLAS
software. For example, we added the ability to start the ATLAS event display
on any computer running CernVM simply by clicking a button in a web browser.
We want to integrate seamlessly VML with CernVM unique file system design to
distribute efficiently ATLAS software on every physicist computer. The
CernVM File System (CVMFS) download files on-demand via HTTP, and cache it
locally for future use. This reduces by one order of magnitude the download
sizes, making practical for a developer to work with multiple software
releases on a virtual machine.
| Presentation type (oral | poster) | oral |
|---|
Authors
Dr
Paolo Calafiura
(LBNL)
Dr
Yushu Yao
(LBNL)
Co-authors
Mr
Andrea Cavalli
(Ecole d'Ingénieurs et d'Architectes de Fribourg, Switzerland)
Dr
Charles Leggett
(LBNL)
Dr
Frederic Bapst
(Ecole d'Ingénieurs et d'Architectes de Fribourg, Switzerland)
Mr
Julien Poffet
(Ecole d'Ingénieurs et d'Architectes de Fribourg, Switzerland)
