Coffea-casa: an analysis facility prototype

TL;DR

Coffea-casa is a prototype analysis facility that offers interactive, notebook-based data analysis for high-energy physics, replacing traditional batch systems with more user-friendly and flexible tools.

Contribution

It introduces a novel web-based, interactive analysis environment integrating Coffea library and modern computing paradigms into HEP data analysis.

Findings

Provides a web-based notebook interface for HEP data analysis

Integrates Coffea library for columnar data processing

Enhances user experience with interactive computing

Abstract

Data analysis in HEP has often relied on batch systems and event loops; users are given a non-interactive interface to computing resources and consider data event-by-event. The "Coffea-casa" prototype analysis facility is an effort to provide users with alternate mechanisms to access computing resources and enable new programming paradigms. Instead of the command-line interface and asynchronous batch access, a notebook-based web interface and interactive computing is provided. Instead of writing event loops, the column-based Coffea library is used. In this paper, we describe the architectural components of the facility, the services offered to end-users, and how it integrates into a larger ecosystem for data access and authentication.