CS Workshop, February 2006

Results

The presentations given at the workshop can be found at the bottom of this page. The results of the workshop are summarized here.

Invitation

Dear Colleagues,

we, the experiment control system group @ GSI, would like to invite you to a workshop dedicated to the CS framework. Please feel free to forward this information to other colleagues.

The main idea behind this workshop is to bring the users and developers of CS together to discuss about the present status and future developments.

So far, CS is in use at a couple of experiments and facilities. Lots of features and classes have been added over the past years. The design and base classes of CS have proven to work and are basically used unchanged for quite some time.

We feel that it is just the right time for such a workshop for two reasons. First, the advent of LabVIEW 8 has triggered some discussion on how to improve or even redesign the CS framework. Examples for new features in LabVIEW 8 are the so called network variables, a project manager supporting real libraries with private namespace, ... . Second, quite a few CS users demand features like better scaling to a larger number of process variables, access control, security, locking of sub-systems... - just to name a few examples.

We propose to have this workshop at GSI on February 2 2006, Thursday, 09:00 to 18:00 (evening: dinner) February 3 2006, Friday, 09:00 to 15:00.

It would be nice if you could provide us with some suggestions about the topics you would like to be informed about and and/or the topics you would like to discuss. Please let us know, if you intend to come to the workshop or not.

Agenda

Maybe it is a good idea to contribute to the CsWishList to enable us to derive a concrete agenda.

Thursday, February 2nd 2006

9:00	Welcome	HolgerBrand		CSWorkshopFebruary2006Welcome.ppt
9:15	CS-Framework Overview	DietrichBeck	30+15 min	IntroductiontotheCSframework.ppt
X:XX	CS-Framework Limitations	StefanGoette	30+15 min	CS-Workshop2005-SG.ppt
XX:XX	Coffee		5+10 min
XX:XX	Database Tools for Configuration	TobiasHabermann	20+10 min
XX:XX	GUIs for FOPI	MaximilianKugler	20+10 min	FOPI-SlowControl.ppt
XX:XX	Lunch		30+30 min
13:00	Collection of requirements	ALL	60+X min	CSWorkshopFebruary2006Requirements.ppt
XX:XX	Coffee		5+10 min
XX:XX	CS Event Mechnism	DietrichBeck	45+20 min	ChangingtheCSEventMechanism.ppt
XX:XX	Coffee		5+10 min
XX:XX	Scaling to larger systems	DietrichBeck	20+10 min	Scalingtolargesystems.ppt
XX:XX	Integration into LabVIEW 8	HolgerBrand	30+15 min
XX:XX	Questions and answers	ALL	20+X min
19:30	Dinner

Zum Storchen Restaurant

Darmstädter Str. 25
64291 Darmstadt
Tel. 06151 933129
Map

Friday, February 3rd 2006

9:00	Summary of first day	HolgerBrand	10+5
XX:XX	LabVIEW integration into the LHC control system	Adriaan Rijllart	20+10 min	GSI-Adriaan06.ppt
XX:XX	Domain Console	DietrichBeck	20+10 min	DomainConsole.ppt
XX:XX	Coffee		5+10 min
XX:XX	Sequencer	Herbert Pichlick	20+10 min	Sequencer-short.pdf
XX:XX	Application Layer	AlexanderSchwinn	20+10 min	Groupobjectsandobjectnets.ppt
XX:XX	Lunch		30+30 min
13:00	SCADA DSC, access rights, ...	HolgerBrand	30+10 min
XX:XX	License, support, collaborative work, openG, SCC	HolgerBrand	20+5 min	CSWorkshopFebruary2006Collaboration.ppt
XX:XX	Discussion and further coffee	ALL	60 min
15:00	End

Possible topics to discuss:

• Integration into LabVIEW 8
  • Project Manager
  • Packaging, OpenG Toolkits,
  • Name space for VIs
  • Directory structure
  • "Subversion" as source code control system
• Event Mechanism
  • Change to "environment variables" (LV 8)?
  • Change to DIM (www.cern.ch/dim)?
  • Format for ProcEvents method
  • Format of "call cluster"
• Scaling to larger systems
  • SCADA backend
  • Number of process variables
  • Locking of sub-systems
  • Access control
  • Consistency of "Set-Values" (for distributed GUIs)
  • Persistency
• Database
  • Suitable configuration tools
  • Name of database can be set in constructor of BaseProcess class
• Application Layer
  • Object Nets
  • Petri Nets
  • Proxies
  • Partitioning
  • Groups of objects
  • "SuperProc" class as factory for objects of any class
• Licensing
  • GPL versus LGPL
  • OpenG

Preparation of Discussion Topics

• Status & Problems
  • At the Moment BaseProcess Classes must have a Database entry, to work. Thats annoying in many cases. What about using a default setting for classes with no Database entry? Or a wire at the constructor named: "use Database entry from Instance ..." instead of using the unflexible vi "Truncate name for SQL"
  • If the "Super-Load Process" would transform to a "Super-Load Object" and a "Data-in" would get available, the Super could be used as a Object Factory
  • We have had some bad errors with wrong grammar in the Proc-Events (other bahavior in the .exe than in the source code). In Mind that the ProcEvents have "theoretically" no use, and only are another source for errors, we would like to discuss about deleting them from the CS. A consequence would be, that a Object getŽs all Events, sent to it. Is that really so bad?
  • By using a Asynchronous call two extra strings are added to the Call Cluster. So my question is: Is anybody using these asynchronous calls? If no, i would think about having a smaller call cluster, to make CS more confortable, and more easy to understand.
• Requirements
  • Device Layer
  • Application Layer
  • Operating Layer

-- HolgerBrand - 19 Jan 2006