R E A D M E
Product Name: Frontier
Product Version: servlet: 3.44 client: 2.10.2
Date (yyyy/mm/dd): servlet: 2026/06/16	client: 2023/6/13
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ORIGIN
======
Authors
Dave Dykstra
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory - Mail Station #120
P.O Box 500
Batavia, IL 60510
Internet: frontier-support@fnal.gov
Fermilab Standard Government Sponsorship Notice
This work was performed at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory,
which is operated by Universities Research Association, Inc., under
contract DE-AC02-76CHO3000 with the U.S. Department of Energy.
Acknowledgements
There were others at Fermilab who were authors before Dave took ownership in June 2006.
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TERMS AND CONDITIONS
====================
This software has been made freely available with a request for
collaborative input subject to standard Fermitools Terms and Conditions.
Small parts of it come from others outside of Fermilab and are covered
by other open source licenses (GNU GPL, python, and BSD). Details are
in the COPYING file.
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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
===================
The Frontier distributed database caching system distributes data from
data sources to many client systems around the world. The name comes
from "N Tier" where N is any number and tiers are layers of locations
of distribution. The central data source is located at Tier 0, and the
Frontier system distributes data to to all the Tier 1, Tier 2, and
Tier 3 sites. Within each site the Frontier system also distributes
the data to all the worker nodes (typically hundreds or thousands)
that need to read the data. The protocol is http-based and uses a
RESTful architecture which is excellent for caching and scales well.
The Frontier system uses the standard web caching tool squid to cache
the http objects at every site. Frontier uses a plugin architecture
that allows great flexibility in the data transferred. Back ends are
currently available for SQL-based databases, http web servers, and
files. The main advantage of using Frontier with a web server, as
opposed to directly using the web server with a squid proxy, is that
years of experience have resulted in Frontier supplying many features
that are important for robust and flexible operation on computing
grids. Documentation
-------------
See the home page http://frontier.cern.ch
Required Software
-----------------
java, tomcat, and squid
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SUPPORT
=======
Help with the installation or use of Frontier is available by sending mail to
frontier-support@fnal.gov
which is auto-forwarded to the group in charge of Frontier support at Fermilab.
This software is furnished by Fermilab on an "as is" basis as a service to the wider community with the goal of stimulating collaborative use and further development.
Provision of the software implies no commitment of support by Fermilab.
The Fermilab Computing Division is open to discussing other levels of support for use of the software with responsible and committed users and collaborators.
Use of the software in experiments at Fermilab will be assured of a level of support as agreed to through the standard Memorandum Of Understanding process.
Users may send mail to the mail address given above, with the expectation that it will be read and noted.
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