Hayrapetyan, A.; Tumasyan, A.; Adam, W.; Andrejkovic, J.W.; Bergauer, T.; Chatterjee, S.; Damanakis, K.; Dragicevic, M.; Hussain, P.S.; Jeitler, M.

Computing demands for large scientific experiments, such as the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC, will increase dramatically in the next decades. To complement the future performance increases of software running on central processing units (CPUs), explorations of coprocessor usage in data processing hold great potential and interest. Coprocessors are a class of computer processors that supplement CPUs, often improving the execution of certain functions due to architectural design choices. We explore the approach of Services for Optimized Network Inference on Coprocessors (SONIC) and study the deployment of this as-a-service approach in large-scale data processing. In the studies, we take a data processing workflow of the CMS experiment and run the main workflow on CPUs, while offloading several machine learning (ML) inference tasks onto either remote or local coprocessors, specifically graphics processing units (GPUs). With experiments performed at Google Cloud, the Purdue Tier-2 computing center, and combinations of the two, we demonstrate the acceleration of these ML algorithms individually on coprocessors and the corresponding throughput improvement for the entire workflow. This approach can be easily generalized to different types of coprocessors and deployed on local CPUs without decreasing the throughput performance. We emphasize that the SONIC approach enables high coprocessor usage and enables the portability to run workflows on different types of coprocessors.

Zhokin, A.; Zhizhin, I.; Zarubin, A.; Yuldashev, B.S.; Voytishin, N.; Vorotnikov, G.; Vorobyev, A.; Volkov, P.; Uzunian, A.; Uvarov, L.

This paper describes the Combine software package used for statistical analyses by the CMS Collaboration. The package, originally designed to perform searches for a Higgs boson and the combined analysis of those searches, has evolved to become the statistical analysis tool presently used in the majority of measurements and searches performed by the CMS Collaboration. It is not specific to the CMS experiment, and this paper is intended to serve as a reference for users outside of the CMS Collaboration, providing an outline of the most salient features and capabilities. Readers are provided with the possibility to run Combine and reproduce examples provided in this paper using a publicly available container image. Since the package is constantly evolving to meet the demands of ever-increasing data sets and analysis sophistication, this paper cannot cover all details of Combine. However, the online documentation referenced within this paper provides an up-to-date and complete user guide.