IPython Integration

Dask.distributed integrates with IPython in three ways:

  1. You can launch a Dask.distributed cluster from an IPyParallel cluster

  2. You can launch IPython kernels from Dask Workers and Schedulers to assist with debugging

  3. They both support the common concurrent.futures interface

Launch Dask from IPyParallel

IPyParallel is IPython’s distributed computing framework that allows you to easily manage many IPython engines on different computers.

An IPyParallel Client can launch a dask.distributed Scheduler and Workers on those IPython engines, effectively launching a full dask.distributed system.

This is possible with the Client.become_dask method:

$ ipcluster start
>>> from ipyparallel import Client
>>> c = Client()  # connect to IPyParallel cluster

>>> e = c.become_dask()  # start dask on top of IPyParallel
>>> e
<Client: scheduler="127.0.0.1:59683" processes=8 cores=8>

Launch IPython within Dask Workers

It is sometimes convenient to inspect the Worker or Scheduler process interactively. Fortunately IPython gives us a way to launch interactive sessions within Python processes. This is available through the following methods:

Client.start_ipython_workers(self[, …])

Start IPython kernels on workers

Client.start_ipython_scheduler(self[, …])

Start IPython kernel on the scheduler

These methods start IPython kernels running in a separate thread within the specified Worker or Schedulers. These kernels are accessible either through IPython magics or a QT-Console.

Example with IPython Magics

>>> e.start_ipython_scheduler()
>>> %scheduler scheduler.processing
{'127.0.0.1:3595': ['inc-1', 'inc-2'],
 '127.0.0.1:53589': ['inc-2', 'add-5']}

>>> info = e.start_ipython_workers()
>>> %remote info['127.0.0.1:3595'] worker.active
{'inc-1', 'inc-2'}

Example with qt-console

You can also open up a full interactive IPython qt-console on the scheduler or each of the workers:

>>> e.start_ipython_scheduler(qtconsole=True)
>>> e.start_ipython_workers(qtconsole=True)