XRootD Client: A robust technology for LHC Run-3 and beyond

Abstract

During the LHC era the XRootD framework has proven to be a critical component of numerous data management and software defined storage solutions (most importantly EOS, the CERN storage technology used for the LHC experiments), and as such grew into one of the most strategic storage technologies in the High Energy Physics (HEP) community. Over the last year significant developments in the area of the XRootD client have been introduced, making it even more reliable and robust, as well as easier to debug. Here, we present an overview of the new XRootD client and its main features, namely, support for erasure coding, in-flight data integrity checks, and the new record plug-in and replay tool that allow to record an I/O pattern and then replay it for debugging or benchmarking purposes.