Backend.AI is a streamlined, container-based computing cluster platform that hosts popular computing/ML frameworks and diverse programming languages, with pluggable heterogeneous accelerator support including CUDA GPU, ROCm GPU, TPU, IPU and other NPUs.

It allocates and isolates the underlying computing resources for multi-tenant computation sessions on-demand or in batches with customizable job schedulers with its own orchestrator. All its functions are exposed as REST/GraphQL/WebSocket APIs.

This repository contains all open-source server-side components and the client SDK for Python as a reference implementation of API clients.

• src/ai/backend/: Source codes
  • manager/: Manager
  • manager/api: Manager API handlers
  • agent/: Agent
  • agent/docker/: Agent's Docker backend
  • agent/k8s/: Agent's Kubernetes backend
  • kernel/: Agent's kernel runner counterpart
  • runner/: Agent's in-kernel prebuilt binaries
  • helpers/: Agent's in-kernel helper package
  • common/: Shared utilities
  • client/: Client SDK
  • cli/: Unified CLI for all components
  • storage/: Storage proxy
  • storage/api: Storage proxy's manager-facing and client-facing APIs
  • web/: Web UI server
    • static/: Backend.AI WebUI release artifacts
  • plugin/: Plugin subsystem
  • test/: Integration test suite
  • testutils/: Shared utilities used by unit tests
  • meta/: Legacy meta package
• docs/: Unified documentation
• tests/
  • manager/, agent/, ...: Per-component unit tests
• configs/
  • manager/, agent/, ...: Per-component sample configurations
• docker/: Dockerfiles for auxiliary containers
• fixtures/
  • manager/, ...: Per-component fixtures for development setup and tests
• plugins/: A directory to place plugins such as accelerators, monitors, etc.
• scripts/: Scripts to assist development workflows
  • install-dev.sh: The single-node development setup script from the working copy
• stubs/: Type annotation stub packages written by us
• tools/: A directory to host Pants-related tooling
• dist/: A directory to put build artifacts (.whl files) and Pants-exported virtualenvs
• changes/: News fragments for towncrier
• pants.toml: The Pants configuration
• pyproject.toml: Tooling configuration (towncrier, pytest, mypy)
• BUILD: The root build config file
• **/BUILD: Per-directory build config files
• BUILD_ROOT: An indicator to mark the build root directory for Pants
• requirements.txt: The unified requirements file
• *.lock, tools/*.lock: The dependency lock files
• docker-compose.*.yml: Per-version recommended halfstack container configs
• README.md: This file
• MIGRATION.md: The migration guide for updating between major releases
• VERSION: The unified version declaration

Server-side components are licensed under LGPLv3 to promote non-proprietary open innovation in the open-source community while other shared libraries and client SDKs are distributed under the MIT license.

There is no obligation to open your service/system codes if you just run the server-side components as-is (e.g., just run as daemons or import the components without modification in your codes). Please contact us (contact-at-lablup-com) for commercial consulting and more licensing details/options about individual use-cases.

Run scripts/install-dev.sh after cloning this repository.

This script checks availability of all required dependencies such as Docker and bootstrap a development setup. Note that it requires sudo and a modern Python installed in the host system based on Linux (Debian/RHEL-likes) or macOS.

Please consult our documentation for community-supported materials. Contact the sales team (contact@lablup.com) for professional paid support and deployment options.

Backend.AI provides websocket tunneling into individual computation sessions (containers), so that users can use their browsers and client CLI to access in-container applications directly in a secure way.

• Jupyter: data scientists' favorite tool
  • Most container images have intrinsic Jupyter and JupyterLab support.
• Web-based terminal
  • All container sessions have intrinsic ttyd support.
• SSH
  • All container sessions have intrinsic SSH/SFTP/SCP support with auto-generated per-user SSH keypair. PyCharm and other IDEs can use on-demand sessions using SSH remote interpreters.
• VSCode
  • Most container sessions have intrinsic web-based VSCode support.

Backend.AI provides an abstraction layer on top of existing network-based storages (e.g., NFS/SMB), called vfolders (virtual folders). Each vfolder works like a cloud storage that can be mounted into any computation sessions and shared between users and user groups with differentiated privileges.

It routes external API requests from front-end services to individual agents. It also monitors and scales the cluster of multiple agents (a few tens to hundreds).

• src/ai/backend/manager
  • README
  • Legacy per-pkg repo: https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-manager
  • Available plugin interfaces
    • backendai_scheduler_v10
    • backendai_hook_v20
    • backendai_webapp_v20
    • backendai_monitor_stats_v10
    • backendai_monitor_error_v10

It manages individual server instances and launches/destroys Docker containers where REPL daemons (kernels) run. Each agent on a new EC2 instance self-registers itself to the instance registry via heartbeats.

• src/ai/backend/agent
  • README
  • Legacy per-pkg repo: https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-agent
  • Available plugin interfaces
    • backendai_accelerator_v21
    • backendai_monitor_stats_v10
    • backendai_monitor_error_v10

It provides a unified abstraction over multiple different network storage devices with vendor-specific enhancements such as real-time performance metrics and filesystem operation acceleration APIs.

• src/ai/backend/storage
  • README
  • Legacy per-pkg repo: https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-storage-proxy

It hosts the SPA (single-page application) packaged from our web UI codebase for end-users and basic administration tasks.

• src/ai/backend/web
  • README
  • Legacy per-pkg repo: https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-webserver

Synchronizing the static Backend.AI WebUI version:

$ scripts/download-webui-release.sh <target version to download>

Computing environment recipes (Dockerfile) to build the container images to execute on top of the Backend.AI platform.

• https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-kernels

A programmable sandbox implemented using ptrace-based system call filtering written in Rust.

• https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-jail

A set of libc overrides for resource control and web-based interactive stdin (paired with agents).

• https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-hook

We offer client SDKs in popular programming languages. These SDKs are freely available with MIT License to ease integration with both commercial and non-commercial software products and services.

• Python (provides the command-line interface)
  • pip install backend.ai-client
  • https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai/tree/main/src/ai/backend/client
• Java
  • Currently only available via GitHub releases
  • https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-client-java
• Javascript
  • npm install backend.ai-client
  • https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-client-js
• PHP (under preparation)
  • composer require lablup/backend.ai-client
  • https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-client-php

• backendai_accelerator_v21
  • ai.backend.accelerator.cuda: CUDA accelerator plugin
  • ai.backend.accelerator.cuda (mock): CUDA mockup plugin
    • This emulates the presence of CUDA devices without actual CUDA devices, so that developers can work on CUDA integration without real GPUs.
  • ai.backend.accelerator.rocm: ROCm accelerator plugin
  • More available in the enterprise edition!
• backendai_monitor_stats_v10
  • ai.backend.monitor.stats
    • Statistics collector based on the Datadog API
• backendai_monitor_error_v10
  • ai.backend.monitor.error
    • Exception collector based on the Sentry API

These components still exist but are no longer actively maintained.

The front-end support libraries to handle multi-media outputs (e.g., SVG plots, animated vector graphics)

• The Python package (lablup) is installed inside kernel containers.
• To interpret and display media generated by the Python package, you need to load the Javascript part in the front-end.
• https://github.com/lablup/backend.ai-media

• Visual Studio Code Extension
  • Search “Live Code Runner” among VSCode extensions.
  • https://github.com/lablup/vscode-live-code-runner
• Atom Editor plugin
  • Search “Live Code Runner” among Atom plugins.
  • https://github.com/lablup/atom-live-code-runner

We now recommend using in-kernel applications such as Jupyter Lab, Visual Studio Code Server, or native SSH connection to kernels via our client SDK or desktop apps.

Refer to LICENSE file.