BOSS: a tool for batch job monitoring and book-keeping

BOSS (Batch Object Submission System) has been developed to provide real-time monitoring and bookkeeping of jobs submitted to a compute farm system. The information is persistently stored in a relational database (MySQL in the current version) for further processing. By means of user-supplied filters, BOSS extracts the specific job information to be monitored from the standard input, output and error of the job itself and stores it in the database in a structured form that allows easy and efficient access. BOSS has been successfully used by all CMS Regional Centers for managing Monte Carlo data productions in 2002. Furthermore in fall 2002 it has been used in a prototype of the CMS production system deployed on the European DataGrid test bed demonstrating its ability to be used also in a grid environment.