Name of the exercise

DAQ Online Software system

Responsible for the exercise

Luca Magnoni, Giovanna Lehmann Miotto

Description of the exercise

DAQ systems are large and heterogeneous infrastructures composed of large number of items to be controlled. This items can be clustered and range from readout modules in VME creates to HLT processes in computer farms. The Online software system is reponsible for configuring, controlling and monitoring the TDAQ system. This exercise presents to students to the role of the Online software and introduces the concepts of controlling and configuring DAQ processes in such a distributed environment. This exercise focus on the synchronization of DAQ processes, the start up and shutdown operations and on the supervision of the whole system behavior.

Details

Student will develop a simple controlled application and a simple controller, they will learn how a controller work according to the standard finit state machine and how to rely on other Online services (Configuration, Information system, messaging) To simply student will work on an ad-hoc simplified environement (Python based). Controller , Configuration, Information System interfaces will be provided by ad-hoc implemention in Python.

Step 1: State-aware application

Student will write a simple state aware application. They will start from a pre-written skeleton implementing a simple "Controllable" interface. The application have to:

• Read some data from the Configuration
• Publish some data in the information system when running
• Manage properly FMS transitions

Step 2: Controller

Starting from a controller skeleton, students will have to develop a custom controller to control the previous application.

• Implement the proper interface
• Control the application during transition

What will the students learn

They will learn about the most common problems in controlling DAQ applications in a distributed environment and how they can be addressed. As well as they will learn about the main capabilities provided by the Online software system in a DAQ framework. Concept: Run control, coordination of FSM transition, Error handling...

Duration

2 hr

List of material

This exercise relies on a predefined software framework and requires some coding and some live interaction with the framework via a graphical interface, therefore no special HW is foreseen. Anyway, I would like also to investigate the possibility to use existing exercise, such as the Ex 10 on FSM, to build more integrated proposal if possible.

• 2 Desktop PCs with SLC5 (with ATLAS DAQ software installed, the same as for Ex 4)

Relevant information

• Related lectures : DAQ software lectures
• The manuals of the devices (modules, scopes, etc) and S/W packages used in the exercise

In addition you have to provide:

• An installation guide. This document is for the supervisor of the exercise. It has to describe in detail how the material has to be set up before the exercise can start (Cabling, S/W installation, etc.)
• An instruction sheet. This document is for the students and tells them whay they have to do

Solution

You have to provide a possible solution for the exercise witch the studens can consult after the exercise or if they get stuck. The solution should not be in this TWiki (we don't want the students to see it)