ADA FAQ (frequently asked questions)

Contact: David Adams

ATLAS Offline Computing: [ Top | Grid | ATLAS grid | Analysis | ADA ]


Index

General
  What is ADA?
  Where do I find the ADA user guide?
  How do I start using ADA?
Jobs
  How do I submit a job using ADA?
  How do I check the status of my job?
  What do I do if my job fails?
  Can I kill my job?
Analysis services
  Which analysis service should I use?
Data
  What data are available?
  Where can I find these data?


General

What is ADA?
ADA (ATLAS Distributed Analysis) is an project to enable ATLAS users to easily do distributed analysis. It combines many of systems that have been developed within ATLAS including data management, production, GANGA and DIAL. For more information, see the
ADA home page.

Where do I find the ADA user guide?
There is no user guide for ADA but the latest DIAL release page provides links to most of what is available. To find this page, please follow the link from the
ADA home page.

How do I start using ADA?
ADA home page To get started with ADA, please see the topic "Getting started" in the ADA user guide.


Jobs

How do I submit a job using ADA?
The "Getting started" section of the user guide provides links for running demos and examples of serious analysis using the root client. The user guide also provides links to instructions for using PyDIAL or the job submission GUI.

How do I check the status of my job?
The service where the job was submitted may be queried for the job status using the root interface, PyDIAL interface or the GUI. See the user guide.

What do I do if my job fails?
See the section on failed jobs in the user guide.

Can I kill my job?
The scheduler provides a method to kill a job and all its subjobs, e.g. from root: msch.kill(jid).


Analysis services

Which analysis service should I use?
See the
service monitor page for a complete list of available services and the status for each. At present the most reliable service is the LSF service at BNL: adial01.usatlas.bnl.gov:20011. If you do not specify the service, your client should default to a sensible one for your installation.


Data

What data are available?
At present most of the Rome AOD's are available for analysis with ADA. Query the DSC (Dataset Selection Catalog) with "level='TOP'" for a complete list of datasets intended for user analysis. The user guide shows how to make this query using the root or web interfaces.

Where can I find these data?
AT present the data location in encoded in the dataset name. The files for dataset names ending in .AOD are available at both CERN and BNL. The files for those ending in .AOD-bnl are available at BNL.


Last modified 07jul05 by dla