| Issue |
EPJ Web Conf.
Volume 337, 2025
27th International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP 2024)
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 01274 | |
| Number of page(s) | 7 | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202533701274 | |
| Published online | 07 October 2025 | |
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202533701274
Label-based Virtual Directories In dCache
1 Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestraße 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany
2 Fermilab, PO Box 500, Batavia IL 60510-5011, USA
3 National Supercomputer Centre in Sweden
* e-mail: marina.sahakyan@desy.de
Published online: 7 October 2025
Traditional filesystems organize data in directories. These directories are typically a collection of files whose grouping is based on a single criterion, e.g., the starting date of an experiment, experiment name, beamline ID, measurement device, or instrument. However, each file in a directory can belong to several logical groups, such as a special event type, experiment condition, or a part of a selected dataset. dCache is a storage system developed to store large amounts of scientific data, used by many HEP and Photon Science experiments. With recent developments in dCache, we have introduced a concept of file tagging, which dynamically groups files with the same label into virtual directories. The file labels can be added, removed, renamed, and deleted through the admin interface or via REST API. The files in virtual directories are exposed through all protocols supported by dCache. This contribution will describe the details of the implementation for file tagging in dCache and present our future development plans on automatic metadata extractions, a feature that will significantly simplify data management. Additionally, we are exploring the future use of virtual directories as a way to translate scientific data catalogs into filesystem views for direct data analysis.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2025
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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