ICALEPCS2011 - Table of Session: TUAAU (Software Technology)

Paper

Title

Page

GDA and EPICS Working in Unison for Science Driven Data Acquisition and Control at Diamond Light Source

529

E.P. Gibbons, M.T. Heron, N.P. Rees
Diamond, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

Diamond Light Source has recently received funding for an additional 10 photon beamlines, bringing the total to 32 beamlines and around 40 end-stations. These all use EPICS for the control of the underlying instrumentation associated with photon delivery, the experiment and most of the data acquisition hardware. For the scientific users Diamond has developed the Generic Data Acquisition (GDA) application framework to provide a consistent science interface across all beamlines. While each application is customised to the science of its beamline, all applications are built from the framework and predominantly interface to the underlying instrumentation through the EPICS abstraction. We will describe the complete system, illustrate how it can be configured for a specific beamline application, and how other synchrotrons are, and can, adapt these tools for their needs.

Slides TUAAUST01 [9.781 MB]

TUAAULT02

Tango Collaboration and Kernel Status

533

E.T. Taurel
ESRF, Grenoble, France

This paper is divided in two parts. The first part summarises the main changes done within the Tango collaboration since the last Icalepcs conference. This will cover technical evolutions but also the new way our collaboration is managed. The second part will focus on the evolution of the so-called Tango event system (asynchronous communication between client and server). Since its beginning, within Tango, this type of communication is implemented using a CORBA notification service implementation called omniNotify. This system is currently re-written using zeromq as transport layer. Reasons of the zeromq choice will be detailed. A first feedback of the new implementation will be given.

Slides TUAAULT02 [1.458 MB]

TUAAULT03

BLED: A Top-down Approach to Accelerator Control System Design

537

J. Bobnar, K. Žagar
COBIK, Solkan, Slovenia

In many existing controls projects the central database/inventory was introduced late in the project, usually to support installation or maintenance activities. Thus construction of this database was done in a bottom-up fashion by reverse engineering the installation. However, there are several benefits if the central database is introduced early in machine design, such as the ability to simulate the system as a whole without having all the IOCs in place, it can be used as an input to the installation/commissioning plan, or act as an enforcer of certain conventions and quality processes. Based on our experience with the control systems, we have designed a central database BLED (Best and Leanest Ever Database), which is used for storage of all machine configuration and parameters as well as control system configuration, inventory, and cabling. First implementation of BLED supports EPICS, meaning it is capable of storage and generation of EPICS templates and substitution files as well as archive, alarm and other configurations. With a goal in mind to provide functionality of several existing central databases (IRMIS, SNS db, DBSF etc.) a lot of effort has been made to design the database in a way to handle extremely large set-ups, consisting of millions of control system points. Furthermore, BLED also stores the lattice data, thus providing additional information (e.g. survey data) required by different engineering groups. The lattice import/export tools among others support MAD and TraceWin Tools formats which are widely used in the machine design community.

Slides TUAAULT03 [4.660 MB]

TUAAULT04

Web-based Execution of Graphical Workflows : a Modular Platform for Multifunctional Scientific Process Automation

540

E. De Ley, D. Jacobs
iSencia Belgium, Gent, Belgium
M. Ounsy
SOLEIL, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

The Passerelle process automation suite offers a fundamentally modular solution platform, based on a layered integration of several best-of-breed technologies. It has been successfully applied by Synchrotron Soleil as the sequencer for data acquisition and control processes on its beamlines, integrated with TANGO as a control bus and GlobalScreen as the Scada package. Since last year it is being used as the graphical workflow component for the development of an eclipse-based Data Analysis Work Bench, at ESRF. The top layer of Passerelle exposes an actor-based development paradigm, based on the Ptolemy framework (UC Berkeley). Actors provide explicit reusability and strong decoupling, combined with an inherently concurrent execution model. Actor libraries exist for TANGO integration, web-services, database operations, flow control, rules-based analysis, mathematical calculations, launching external scripts etc. Passerelle's internal architecture is based on OSGi, the major Java framework for modular service-based applications. A large set of modules exist that can be recombined as desired to obtain different features and deployment models. Besides desktop versions of the Passerelle workflow workbench, there is also the Passerelle Manager. It is a secured web application including a graphical editor, for centralized design, execution, management and monitoring of process flows, integrating standard Java Enterprise services with OSGi. We will present the internal technical architecture, some interesting application cases and the lessons learnt.

Slides TUAAULT04 [10.055 MB]

TUAAUKP05

Trends in Programming Languages

M. Völter
itemis, Luenen, Germany

Over the last couple of years, two major trends have occurred in programming languages. One is the demise of Java as the jack of all trades in programming languages. New languages are developed, driven by the need for better support for concurrency and multicore, functional programming and meta programming. Second, the feasibility for niche communities to build their own languages has increased by the advent of language workbenches, tools that support the rapid development of DSLs, languages customized for a given task or problem domain. In this talk, I provide a quick overview of these trends, as well as the relevant languages and tools.

Slides TUAAUKP05 [9.351 MB]

Paper	Title	Page
TUAAUST01	GDA and EPICS Working in Unison for Science Driven Data Acquisition and Control at Diamond Light Source	529
	E.P. Gibbons, M.T. Heron, N.P. Rees Diamond, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
	Diamond Light Source has recently received funding for an additional 10 photon beamlines, bringing the total to 32 beamlines and around 40 end-stations. These all use EPICS for the control of the underlying instrumentation associated with photon delivery, the experiment and most of the data acquisition hardware. For the scientific users Diamond has developed the Generic Data Acquisition (GDA) application framework to provide a consistent science interface across all beamlines. While each application is customised to the science of its beamline, all applications are built from the framework and predominantly interface to the underlying instrumentation through the EPICS abstraction. We will describe the complete system, illustrate how it can be configured for a specific beamline application, and how other synchrotrons are, and can, adapt these tools for their needs.
	Slides TUAAUST01 [9.781 MB]

TUAAULT02	Tango Collaboration and Kernel Status	533
	E.T. Taurel ESRF, Grenoble, France
	This paper is divided in two parts. The first part summarises the main changes done within the Tango collaboration since the last Icalepcs conference. This will cover technical evolutions but also the new way our collaboration is managed. The second part will focus on the evolution of the so-called Tango event system (asynchronous communication between client and server). Since its beginning, within Tango, this type of communication is implemented using a CORBA notification service implementation called omniNotify. This system is currently re-written using zeromq as transport layer. Reasons of the zeromq choice will be detailed. A first feedback of the new implementation will be given.
	Slides TUAAULT02 [1.458 MB]

TUAAULT03	BLED: A Top-down Approach to Accelerator Control System Design	537
	J. Bobnar, K. Žagar COBIK, Solkan, Slovenia
	In many existing controls projects the central database/inventory was introduced late in the project, usually to support installation or maintenance activities. Thus construction of this database was done in a bottom-up fashion by reverse engineering the installation. However, there are several benefits if the central database is introduced early in machine design, such as the ability to simulate the system as a whole without having all the IOCs in place, it can be used as an input to the installation/commissioning plan, or act as an enforcer of certain conventions and quality processes. Based on our experience with the control systems, we have designed a central database BLED (Best and Leanest Ever Database), which is used for storage of all machine configuration and parameters as well as control system configuration, inventory, and cabling. First implementation of BLED supports EPICS, meaning it is capable of storage and generation of EPICS templates and substitution files as well as archive, alarm and other configurations. With a goal in mind to provide functionality of several existing central databases (IRMIS, SNS db, DBSF etc.) a lot of effort has been made to design the database in a way to handle extremely large set-ups, consisting of millions of control system points. Furthermore, BLED also stores the lattice data, thus providing additional information (e.g. survey data) required by different engineering groups. The lattice import/export tools among others support MAD and TraceWin Tools formats which are widely used in the machine design community.
	Slides TUAAULT03 [4.660 MB]

TUAAULT04	Web-based Execution of Graphical Workflows : a Modular Platform for Multifunctional Scientific Process Automation	540
	E. De Ley, D. Jacobs iSencia Belgium, Gent, Belgium M. Ounsy SOLEIL, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
	The Passerelle process automation suite offers a fundamentally modular solution platform, based on a layered integration of several best-of-breed technologies. It has been successfully applied by Synchrotron Soleil as the sequencer for data acquisition and control processes on its beamlines, integrated with TANGO as a control bus and GlobalScreen as the Scada package. Since last year it is being used as the graphical workflow component for the development of an eclipse-based Data Analysis Work Bench, at ESRF. The top layer of Passerelle exposes an actor-based development paradigm, based on the Ptolemy framework (UC Berkeley). Actors provide explicit reusability and strong decoupling, combined with an inherently concurrent execution model. Actor libraries exist for TANGO integration, web-services, database operations, flow control, rules-based analysis, mathematical calculations, launching external scripts etc. Passerelle's internal architecture is based on OSGi, the major Java framework for modular service-based applications. A large set of modules exist that can be recombined as desired to obtain different features and deployment models. Besides desktop versions of the Passerelle workflow workbench, there is also the Passerelle Manager. It is a secured web application including a graphical editor, for centralized design, execution, management and monitoring of process flows, integrating standard Java Enterprise services with OSGi. We will present the internal technical architecture, some interesting application cases and the lessons learnt.
	Slides TUAAULT04 [10.055 MB]

TUAAUKP05	Trends in Programming Languages
	M. Völter itemis, Luenen, Germany
	Over the last couple of years, two major trends have occurred in programming languages. One is the demise of Java as the jack of all trades in programming languages. New languages are developed, driven by the need for better support for concurrency and multicore, functional programming and meta programming. Second, the feasibility for niche communities to build their own languages has increased by the advent of language workbenches, tools that support the rapid development of DSLs, languages customized for a given task or problem domain. In this talk, I provide a quick overview of these trends, as well as the relevant languages and tools.
	Slides TUAAUKP05 [9.351 MB]