ADIOS 2: The Adaptable Input/Output System version 2

Funded by the Exascale Computing Project (ECP), U.S. Department of Energy

ADIOS2 is the latest implementation of the Adaptable Input Output System. This brand new architecture continues the performance legacy of ADIOS1, and extends its capabilities to address the extreme challenges of scientific data IO.

The ADIOS2 repo is hosted at GitHub.

The ADIOS2 infrastructure is developed as a multi-institutional collaboration between

The key aspects ADIOS2 are

  1. Modular architecture: ADIOS2 takes advantage of the major features of C++17. The architecture utilizes a balanced combination of runtime polymorphism and template meta-programming to expose intuitive abstractions for a broad range of IO applications.

  2. Community: By maintaining coding standards, collaborative workflows, and understandable documentation, ADIOS2 lowers the barriers to entry for scientists to meaningfully interact with the code.

  3. Sustainability: Continuous integration and unit testing ensure that ADIOS2 evolves responsibly. Bug reports are triaged and fixed in a timely manner and can be reported on GitHub.

  4. Language Support: In addition to the native C++, bindings for Python, C, Fortran and Matlab are provided.

  5. Commitment: ADIOS2 is committed to the HPC community, releasing a new version every 6 months.

ADIOS2 is funded by the Department of Energy as part of the Exascale Computing Project.

What ADIOS2 is and isn’t

ADIOS2 is:

  • A Unified High-performance I/O Framework: using the same abstraction API ADIOS2 can transport and transform groups of self-describing data variables and attributes across different media (file, wide-area-network, in-memory staging, etc.) with performance an ease of use as the main goals.

  • MPI-based: parallel MPI applications as well as serial codes can use it

  • Streaming-oriented: ADIOS2 favors codes transferring a group of variables asynchronously wherever possible. Moving one variable at a time, in synchronous fashion, is the special case rather than normal.

  • Step-based: to resemble actual production of data in “steps” of variable groups, for either streaming or random-access (file) media

  • Free and open-source: ADIOS2 is permissibly licensed under the OSI-approved Apache 2 license.

  • Extreme scale I/O: ADIOS2 is being used in supercomputer applications that write and read up to several petabytes in a single simulation run. ADIOS2 is designed to provide scalable I/O on the largest supercomputers in the world.

ADIOS2 is not:

  • A file-only I/O library: Code coupling and in situ analyis is possible through files but special engines are available to achieve the same thing faster through TCP, RDMA and MPI communication. High performance write/read using a file system is a primary goal of ADIOS2 though.

  • MPI-only

  • A Hierarchical Model: Data hierarchies can be built on top of the ADIOS2 according to the application, but ADIOS2 sits a layer of abstraction beneath this.

  • A Memory Manager Library: we don’t own or manage the application’s memory

Adaptable IO beyond files in Scientific Data Lifecycles

Performant and usable tools for data management at scale are essential in an era where scientific breakthroughs are collaborative, multidisciplinary, and computational. ADIOS2 is an adaptable, scalable, and unified framework to aid scientific applications when data transfer volumes exceed the capabilities of traditional file I/O.

Adaptable IO System

ADIOS2 provides

  • Custom application management of massive data sets, starting from generation, analysis, and movement, as well as short-term and long-term storage.

  • Self-describing data in binary-packed (.bp) format for rapid metadata extraction

  • An ability to separate and extract relevant information from large data sets

  • The capability to make real-time decisions based on in-transit or in-situ analytics

  • The ability to expand to other transport mechanisms such wide area networks, remote direct memory access, and shared memory, with minimal overhead

  • The ability to utilize the full capabilities of emergent hardware technologies, such as high-bandwidth memory and burst buffers

Introduction

Setting Up

Basics

Advanced Topics

Tutorials

Ecosystem Tools

Additional Information