Al-Turany, M.

Buncic, P.

Hristov, P.

Kollegger, T.

Lindenstruth, V.

Vande Vyvre, P.

GSI Repository

ALFA: A new Framework for ALICE and FAIR experimentsM. Al-Turany1, P. Buncic 3, P. Hristov3, T. Kollegger 1,2, V. Lindenstruth1,2, and P. Vande Vyvre31GSI, Darmstadt, Germany; 2FIAS, Frankfurt, Germany; 3CERN, Geneva, SwitzerlandIntroductionThe FairRoot framework [1] started in 2003/2004 as aframework for CBM collaboration. Meanwhile it is usedby 7 experiments as a base for their simulation and anal-ysis: CBM, PANDA, R3B, ASYEOS and the GEM sub-group of FOPI at GSI/FAIR. The MPD experiment at JINRin Dubna and the EIC collaboration are also using the Fair-Root framework as a base for their own software. The com-monalities between ALICE and the FAIR experiments andtheir computing requirements lead to the expectation thatlarge parts of the software framework can be written in anexperiment independent way. The FairRoot project has al-ready shown the feasibility of the approach of developing acommon framework for several experiments. We thereforepropose to develop the new common framework which willbe called ALFA.Technology backgroundThe efficient use of a concurrent computing system re-quires the correct sequencing of the interactions or com-munications between different computational executions,as well as coordinating access to resources that are sharedamong executions. A number of different methods can beused to implement concurrent programs, such as imple-menting each computational execution as an operating sys-tem process, or implementing the computational processesas a set of threads within a single operating system process.The future framework has to support a heterogeneous anddistributed computing system.A message-based approach will allow us to run our soft-ware on all hardware platforms (from a laptop to an entiresystem with many thousands of cores and specialized hard-ware accelerators). An Open-source system such as Ze-roMQ [2] and/or nanomsg [3] will be used as a lightweightmessaging layer. What is today a single threaded appli-cation will be transformed into many small componentsrunning concurrently as independent processes (executingon the same node or distributed over the network) withsome of them utilizing capabilities of specialized hardware(where available) and communicating by asynchronousmessaging.Proposed architectureThe proposed architecture will rely on a data-flow basedmodel. It will contain a common transport layer. Com-mon configuration, management and monitoring tools willbe developed. The framework will provide unified accessto configuration parameters and databases. It will includesupport for a heterogeneous and distributed computing sys-tem. The proposed architecture will also incorporate com-mon data processing components.Expected benefits from the common projectThis common development will benefit to all experi-ments involved; it will shorten the time to deliver produc-tion quality code and will reduce the cost to develop it. Thework in common will also allow a better coverage and test-ing of the code. Moreover, the extended user communitywill provide high quality documentation, training and ex-amples.A common framework will be beneficial for the FAIRexperiments since it will be tested with real data and ex-isting detectors before the start of the FAIR facility. Forexample, concepts for online calibrations and alignmentcan be tested in a real environment, similar to that of theplanned FAIR experiments.ALICE will benefit from the work already performed bythe FairRoot team concerning features (e.g. the continuousread-out), which are part of the ongoing FairRoot develop-ment.OutlookA proof of concept for the design and the technologyhas been successfully implemented [4]. Work on differentprototypes is just starting; for ALICE and CBM the pro-totypes are planned for the end of this year. Both proto-types should show the ability of the ALFA framework totransport huge amount of data and distribute it on a largecluster of compute nodes. For PANDA experiment a pro-totype is also planned for this year which will concentrateon using heterogeneous architecture (CPU and GPU) forthe online event reconstruction. Implementing these pro-totypes simultaneously will help us identifying more com-mon issues and will enhance the synergy between the def-erent experiments. Naturally all common packages will beimplemented in the ALFA framework.References[1] M. Al-Turany et al. The FairRoot framework J. Phys.: Conf.Ser. 396 022001, 2012.[2] http://www.zeromq.org/[3] http://nanomsg.org[4] M. Al-Turany et al. Extending the FairRoot framework to al-low for simulation and reconstruction of free streaming data .Accepted for publication by, Journal of Physics: ConferenceSeries (2013)IT-04 GSI SCIENTIFIC REPORT 2013282 doi:10.15120/GR-2014-1-IT-04

ALFA: A new Framework for ALICE and FAIR experiments

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ALFA: A new Framework for ALICE and FAIR experiments

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