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MaDaTS: Managing Data on Tiered Storage for Scientific Workflows

• Author: Devarshi Ghoshal
• v1.1.3
• Created: Oct 25, 2016
• Updated: Sep 16, 2020

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MaDaTS provides an integrated data management and workflow execution framework on multi-tiered storage systems. Users of MaDaTS can execute a workflow by either specifying the workflow stages in a YAML description file, or use the API to manage workflows and associated data. Some examples of specifying the workflow description and using the API are provided in the examples/ directory.

The MaDaTS API provides simple data abstractions for managing workflow and data on multi-tiered storage. It takes a data-driven approach to executing workflows, where a workflow is mapped to a Virtual Data Space (VDS) consisting of virtual data objects. A user simply creates a VDS and adds virtual data objects to the VDS, and MaDaTS takes care of all the necessary data movements and bindings to seamlessly manage a workflow and associated data across multiple storage tiers.

PRE-REQUISITES

• Python (>= 2.7)
• pip (>= 9.0)

BUILD

To install MaDaTS, do:

    pip install -r requirements.txt
    python setup.py install

EXECUTION SETUP

The environment variable MADATS_HOME should be set prior to using MaDaTS. The setup script creates a MADATS_HOME file that can be sourced prior to using MaDaTS as:

   source MADATS_HOME

Alternatively, users can set MADATS_HOME as:

   # BASH / ZSH
   export MADATS_HOME=</path/to/madats/source/directory>

   # CSH / TCSH
   setenv MADATS_HOME </path/to/madats/source/directory>

TEST

To test MaDaTS, do:

    source MADATS_HOME
    py.test tests/test_madats.py

Example

In order to manage data and workflow, users need to create virtual data objects and tasks, and add them to a Virtual Data Space (VDS). Data and tasks of the workflow are managed through MaDaTS by simply calling the manage function. An example listing the steps to manage a workflow and its data through MaDaTS is given below.

import madats

# Create a Virtual Data Space (VDS)
vds = madats.VirtualDataSpace()

# Create Virtual Data Object
vdo = madats.VirtualDataObject('/path/to/data')

# Create a Task
task = madats.Task(command='/application/program')
task.params = ['arg1', 'arg2', vdo]

# Associate tasks to virtual data objects
vdo.producers = [task]

# Add the virtual data object to the VDS
vds.add(vdo)

# Manage data and workflow execution through MaDaTS
madats.manage(vds)

It is important to note how MaDaTS uses data as the first-class citizen. Everything in MaDaTS is centered around virtual data objects. Tasks are specified as producers and consumers of virtual data objects. A VDS is a collection of several virtual data objects that that represent the data of a workflow.

In addition to creating a VDS step-by-step as shown above, users can also map a workflow into VDS. MaDaTS provides the map function that takes as input a YAML description of a workflow, or a dict-like object (similar to JSON).

   import madats

   # Map a YAML workflow description to VDS
   vds = madats.map('workflow/description/yaml', language='yaml') 

$MADATS_HOME/examples/madats_workflow.yaml specifies a description file for a sample workflow. The examples/ directory also contains examples that describe different ways of specifying a workflow and data management properties in MaDaTS.

Configuring Storage Tiers

MaDaTS is designed to manage data seamlessly across multiple storage tiers. The storage configuration can be defined through config/storage.yaml. The configuration file contains an identifier for each storage tier and its associated properties.

Batch Scheduler

MaDaTS currently supports PBS and SLURM batch schedulers for managing workflow tasks as batch jobs. The various options for the batch schedulers are specified in their respective configuration files config/pbs.cfg and config/slurm.cfg. Users can also add their own batch schedulers by specifying the respective configuration files.

LICENSE

3-Clause BSD License. Copyright (c) 2018, The Regents of the University of California, through Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (subject to receipt of any required approvals from the U.S. Dept. of Energy). All rights reserved.