JACoW is a publisher in Geneva, Switzerland that publishes the proceedings of accelerator conferences held around the world by an international collaboration of editors.
TY - CONF AU - Pace, M. AU - Hoguin, F. AU - Matli, E. AU - Sliwinski, W. AU - Urbaniec, B. ED - Schaa, Volker RW ED - Götz, Andy ED - Venter, Johan ED - White, Karen ED - Robichon, Marie ED - Rowland, Vivienne TI - Ensuring Smooth Controls Upgrades During Operation J2 - Proc. of ICALEPCS2023, Cape Town, South Africa, 09-13 October 2023 CY - Cape Town, South Africa T2 - International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems T3 - 19 LA - english AB - The CERN Accelerator Controls systems have to remain as stable as possible for operations. However, there are inevitable needs to introduce changes to provide new functionalities and conduct important consolidation activities. To deal with this, a formal procedure and approval process, the Smooth Upgrades procedure, was introduced and refined over a number of years. This involves declaring foreseen Controls changes as a function of the accelerator schedules, validating them with stakeholders, and organising their deployment in the production environment. All of this with the aim of minimising the impact on accelerator operation. The scope of this activity is CERN-wide, covering changes developed by all CERN units involved in Controls and encompassing the whole CERN accelerator and facility complex. In 2022, the mandate was further extended with a more formal approach to coordinate changes of the software interfaces of the devices running on front-end computers, which form a critical part of the smooth deployment process. Today, Smooth Upgrades are considered a key contributor to the performance and stability of the CERN Control system. This paper describes the Smooth Upgrades procedure and the underlying processes and tools such as schedule management, change management, and the monitoring of device usage. The paper also includes the major evolutions which allowed the current level of maturity and efficiency to be reached. Ideas for future improvements will also be covered. PB - JACoW Publishing CP - Geneva, Switzerland SP - 321 EP - 327 KW - controls KW - operation KW - software KW - interface KW - GUI DA - 2024/02 PY - 2024 SN - 2226-0358 SN - 978-3-95450-238-7 DO - doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TU2AO04 UR - https://jacow.org/icalepcs2023/papers/tu2ao04.pdf ER -