PAW and PIAF server at D0

PAW (Physics Analysis Workstation) and its client-server model PIAF (Parallel Interactive Analysis Facility) are conceived as instruments to assist physicists in the analysis and presentation of their data. They were originally developed at CERN. Several extensions and enhancements were developed at Fermilab D0 group.

At D0, we built a PIAF server on a SGI Challenge . The plan is to put all Run Ia and Run Ib data as 'D0 Ntuples' (mostly Column-Wise Ntuples) and make it availabe to the entire Collaboration (i.e. including remote Institutions) via PIAF server.

Motivation: Why do we use PAW/PIAF and Column Wise Ntuples?
PAW home page at CERN.: You can find more information about PAW here.
PAW HTML recording: Electronic log book facility, a PAW extension featuring recording some important PAW command in a session to a HTML format file. Mask algorithm has been changed to use PIAF Mask.
To use PIAF server: How to access PIAF server at Challenge? Where is the Ntuples? Data archiving and retrieving. Data disks current usage information.
PIAF server new features: Specific changes made in D0 PIAF server. Piaf Mask, Link with use libraries, Piaf server versions available.
General Ntuples: Why make and use general Ntuples? What is the format?
Column Wise Ntuples I/O optimization: Why do you need CWN I/O optimization? How to do that? Tools available.

dongzhao@fnal.gov