A Simple API for Grid and Distributed Applications
SAGA (Simple API for Grid Applications) defines a high-level interface to the most commonly used distributed computing functionality. SAGA provides an access-layer and mechanisms for distributed infrastructure components like job schedulers, file transfer and resource provisioning services. Given the heterogeneity of distributed infrastructure, SAGA provides a much needed interoperability layer that lowers the complexity and improves the simplicity of using distributed infrastructure whilst enhancing the sustainability of distributed applications, services and tools.
RADICAL-SAGA provides a Python module that is compliant with the OGF GFD.90 SAGA specification. Behind the API façade, RADICAL-SAGA implements a flexible adaptor architecture. Adaptors are dynamically loadable modules that interface the API with different middleware systems and services. Most application developers use the adaptors that are already part of RADICAL-SAGA, but you can easily implement your own in case your backend system is not supported yet.
RADICAL-SAGA's main focus is ease of use and simple user-space deployment in heterogeneous distributed computing environments. It supports a wide range of application use-cases from simple, uncoupled tasks to complex workflows. RADICAL-SAGA is being used on many distributed cyberinfrastructures, including XSEDE, OSG and FutureGrid where it marshals tens of thousands of cores and moves terabytes of data in production science applications.
Extensible Connectivity Through Adaptors
RADICAL-SAGA supports a wide range of distributed computing middleware and service via a flexible adaptor architecture. Adaptors are plug-ins that bind API calls to the respective backend. RADICAL-SAGA currently supports the following backends:
An Active and Diverse User Community
A variety of projects and a host of applications seeking to utilize distributed resources in advanced and scalable ways use and contribute actively to the RADICAL-SAGA project. The RADICAL-SAGA user community spans a broad field of research topics, tools and frameworks. Here are a few of them:
GRIB uses RADICAL-SAGA to implement workflows for IntOGen-mutations analysis and other biomedial applications.
BNL uses RADICAL-SAGA to extend PanDA (the workload management system for the ATLAS project) to U.S. HPC resources.
KISTI uses RADICAL-SAGA to develop their web-based National Supercomputing Service Platform.
LESC uses RADICAL-SAGA in libHPC, a framework for specification of scientific HPC applications using high-level functional constructs.
BSC Earth Sciences department uses RADICAL-SAGA in the Autosubmit project to manage weather, air quality and multi-model multi-member climate prediction experiments.