PCaPAC2014 - List of Authors (Plesko, M.)

Paper

Title

Page

Implementation of the Distributed Alarm System for the Particle Accelerator FAIR Using an Actor Concurrent Programming Model and the Concept of an Agent

102

D. Kumar, G.G. Gaperic, M. Pleško
Cosylab, Ljubljana, Slovenia
R. Huhmann, S. Krepp
GSI, Darmstadt, Germany

The Alarm System is a software system that enables operators to identify and locate conditions which indicate hardware and software components malfunctioning or nearby malfunctioning. The FAIR Alarm System is being constructed as a Slovenian in-kind contribution to FAIR project. The purpose of the paper is to show how to simplify the development of a highly available distributed alarm system for the particle accelerator FAIR using a concurrent programming model based on actors and on the concept of an agent. The agents separate the distribution of the alarm status signals to the clients from the processing of the alarm signals. The logical communication between an alarm client and an agent is between an actor in the alarm client and an actor in the agent. These two remote actors exchange messages through Java MOM. The following will be addressed: the tree-like hierarchy of actors that are used for the fault tolerance communication between an agent and an alarm client; a custom message protocol used by the actors; the message system and corresponding technical implications; and details of software components that were developed using the Akka programming library.

TCO103

Recent Highlights from Cosylab

132

M. Pleško, F. Amand
Cosylab, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Cosylab was established 13 years ago by a group of regular visitors of the PCaPAC. In the meantime, it has grown to a company of 90 employees that covers the majority of accelerator control projects. In this talk, I will present the most interesting developments that we have done in the past two years on a very different range of projects and I will show how we had to get organized in order to be able to manage them all. The developments were made for labs like KIT, ITER, PSI, EBG-MedAustron, European Spallation Source, Maxlab, SLAC, ORNL, GSI/FAIR but also generally for community software like EPICS, TANGO, Control System Studio, White Rabbit, etc. And they range from electronics development to high level software: electric signal conditioning and interfacing, timing system, machine protection system, fibre-optic communication, linux driver development, core EPICS development, packaging, high performance networks, medical device integration, database development, all the way up to turnkey systems. Efficient organisation comprises a matrix structure of teams and groups versus projects and accounts, supported by rigorous reporting, measurements and drill-down analyses.

Slides TCO103 [13.372 MB]

Paper	Title	Page
WPO029	Implementation of the Distributed Alarm System for the Particle Accelerator FAIR Using an Actor Concurrent Programming Model and the Concept of an Agent	102
	D. Kumar, G.G. Gaperic, M. Pleško Cosylab, Ljubljana, Slovenia R. Huhmann, S. Krepp GSI, Darmstadt, Germany
	The Alarm System is a software system that enables operators to identify and locate conditions which indicate hardware and software components malfunctioning or nearby malfunctioning. The FAIR Alarm System is being constructed as a Slovenian in-kind contribution to FAIR project. The purpose of the paper is to show how to simplify the development of a highly available distributed alarm system for the particle accelerator FAIR using a concurrent programming model based on actors and on the concept of an agent. The agents separate the distribution of the alarm status signals to the clients from the processing of the alarm signals. The logical communication between an alarm client and an agent is between an actor in the alarm client and an actor in the agent. These two remote actors exchange messages through Java MOM. The following will be addressed: the tree-like hierarchy of actors that are used for the fault tolerance communication between an agent and an alarm client; a custom message protocol used by the actors; the message system and corresponding technical implications; and details of software components that were developed using the Akka programming library.

TCO103	Recent Highlights from Cosylab	132
	M. Pleško, F. Amand Cosylab, Ljubljana, Slovenia
	Cosylab was established 13 years ago by a group of regular visitors of the PCaPAC. In the meantime, it has grown to a company of 90 employees that covers the majority of accelerator control projects. In this talk, I will present the most interesting developments that we have done in the past two years on a very different range of projects and I will show how we had to get organized in order to be able to manage them all. The developments were made for labs like KIT, ITER, PSI, EBG-MedAustron, European Spallation Source, Maxlab, SLAC, ORNL, GSI/FAIR but also generally for community software like EPICS, TANGO, Control System Studio, White Rabbit, etc. And they range from electronics development to high level software: electric signal conditioning and interfacing, timing system, machine protection system, fibre-optic communication, linux driver development, core EPICS development, packaging, high performance networks, medical device integration, database development, all the way up to turnkey systems. Efficient organisation comprises a matrix structure of teams and groups versus projects and accounts, supported by rigorous reporting, measurements and drill-down analyses.
	Slides TCO103 [13.372 MB]