[Swift-user] Provider staging vs coaster data provider

[Michael Wilde]

Mihael, you may have explained this to me already, but can you clarify:

In addition to provider staging using the coaster provider, it seems you can say <filesystem provider=coaster> (or <gridftp>) which uses the coaster channel and agent to move data?

One difference is that with provider staging, *all* file transfer for all sites is done via that method, correct?

If a coaster filesystem provider is available, then the user can use that on selected sites, while other sites can use any other provider, correct?

Provider staging with the coaster provider is done via the coaster data channel and all data goes directly to a job directory typically placed on the worker node local filesystem, right?

Now, with coaster data provider staging, does that same restriction apply, or can the coaster data provider (assuming it really exists) place data on any path accessible to the worker? I.e., one could use a standard shared workdirectory if one was so inclined, although that would be counter-productive.

Once I have all the above straight, I'm going to try to figure out how these two methods interact with CDM.

Thanks,

Mike


-- 
Michael Wilde
Computation Institute, University of Chicago
Mathematics and Computer Science Division
Argonne National Laboratory