Analysis Cyberinfrastructure: Challenges and Opportunities

TL;DR

This paper discusses the current state and future challenges of analysis cyberinfrastructure in High Energy Physics, focusing on software and hardware used for late-stage data analysis, and highlights potential research directions.

Contribution

It provides a reflection on recent experiences with a Python-based analysis framework and explores future R&D topics for analysis cyberinfrastructure in the High-Luminosity LHC era.

Findings

Identified challenges in current analysis workflows.

Highlighted the need for R&D in analysis software and hardware.

Suggested future research directions for analysis cyberinfrastructure.

Abstract

Analysis cyberinfrastructure refers to the combination of software and computer hardware used to support late-stage data analysis in High Energy Physics (HEP). For the purposes of this white paper, late-stage data analysis refers specifically to the step of transforming the most reduced common data format produced by a given experimental collaboration (for example, nanoAOD for the CMS experiment) into histograms. In this white paper, we reflect on observations gathered from a recent experience with data analysis using a recent, python-based analysis framework, and extrapolate these experiences though the High-Luminosity LHC era as way of highlighting potential R\&D topics in analysis cyberinfrastructure.