Balsam

Balsam is a Python-based workflow manager that helps users execute large numbers of jobs, potentially with interjob dependencies, track job outcomes, and manage postprocessing analysis. A Balsam Site runs on a node with access to the job scheduler, where it can submit and monitor jobs. Overall job state is aggregated on the Balsam Server, making job data from all Sites accessible from any individual site (or the user's laptop), via the command-line interface or the Python API. To get information on how to use the command line tool, you can type balsam --help in your shell.

Full documentation for Balsam is available online.

Balsam requires Python 3.7+. To install Balsam on Polaris, first set up a virtual Python environment:

module load conda
conda activate base
python -m venv env
source env/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install --pre balsam

To use Balsam, users need an account on the Balsam server. Users can get an account by contacting the ALCF Help Desk. Once a user has an account, they can login and make a new site. A Balsam site is a project space for your workflow. You will be prompted to select what machine (Polaris) you are working on when creating a new site:

balsam login
balsam site init -n new-site new-site
cd new-site
balsam site start

See the Balsam documentation for full details.