[Coin-announce] Optimization Services Project (OS) Release 1.0

[Kipp Martin]

Hi:

Release 1.0.0  of the Optimization Services (OS) COIN-OR project is now 
available for download.  See  https://projects.coin-or.org/OS.

The objective of Optimization Services (OS) is to provide a general 
framework consisting of a set of standards for representing optimization 
instances, results, solver options, and communication between clients 
and solvers in a distributed environment using Web Services. This 
COIN-OR project provides source code for libraries and executable 
programs that implement OS standards.  The OS project provides the 
following:

1.  A set of XML based standards for representing optimization instances 
(OSiL), optimization results (OSrL), and optimization solver options 
(OSoL). There are other standards, but these are the main ones.

2.  A robust solver and modeling language interface (API) for linear and 
nonlinear optimization problems.  Corresponding to the OSiL problem 
instance representation there is an in-memory object,  OSInstance, along 
with a set of get(),  set(), and calculate() methods for accessing and 
creating problem instances. This is a very general API for linear, 
integer, and nonlinear programs. Extensions for other major types of 
optimization problems are also in the works. Any modeling language that 
can produce OSiL can easily communicate with any solver that uses the 
OSInstance API.

3.  A  command line executable OSSolverService  for reading problem 
instances (OSiL format, AMPL  nl format,  MPS format) and calling a 
solver either locally or on a remote server.

4. Utilities that convert AMPL nl files into the OSiL XML format and MPS 
files into the OSiL XML format.

5.  Standards that facilitate the communication between clients and 
optimization solvers using Web Services.

6.  An executable program  amplClient that is designed to work with the 
AMPL modeling language. The  amplClient appears as a ``solver''  to AMPL 
and, based on options given in AMPL, contacts solvers either remotely or 
locally to solve instances created in AMPL.

7.  Server software that works with Apache Tomcat and Apache Axis.
This software uses Web Services technology and acts as middleware 
between the client that creates the instance, and solver on the server 
that optimizes the instance and returns the result.

The OS libraries and executables have been compiled and built on 
GNU/Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.  Using the OS interface we have tested 
the following solvers:  Cbc, Clp, Cplex, DyLP, Glpk, Ipopt, Knitro, 
Lindo, SYMPHONY, and Vol.

Extensive documentation is available at the Web site.


The Optimization Services project will be presented in the session SC29, 
"New COIN-OR Projects" on Sunday, November 4 from 1:30-3:00 pm  at the 
Seattle INFORMS meeting. There is also a related session SD29, 
"Optimization Services and Third Party Software," on November 4 from 
4:30 until 6:00 pm.

Thank you,

Robert Fourer
Jun Ma
Kipp Martin
Wayne Sheng
-- 
Kipp Martin
Professor of Operations Research
and Computing Technology
Graduate School of Business
University of Chicago
5807 South Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
773-702-7456
kipp.martin at chicagogsb.edu
http://gsbkip.chicagogsb.edu
http://www.coin-or.org