Design Principles¶

(Work in progress)

• All Arvados core components should be Free Software.
• Any application should be able to run on Arvados (possibly with a simple wrapper script) including non-free tools only available as binaries.
• Use web technologies to tie components together, so programs can access Arvados regardless of programming language or framework.
• Use the best tool, programming language, or framework for each component, instead of standardizing on a single platform for the sake of conformity.
• Prefer to integrate established, widely understood components such as ssh, git, and slurm instead of hand rolling our own solutions.
• Explicitly target Debian GNU/Linux as the deployment platform specific to maximize performance and ease of development.
• Use technologies such as virtual machines and Linux containers to enable portability for the software stack.