A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Laboratory Operated by The University of Chicago Argonne National Laboratory Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy What Do I Want from an RDB? Ned Arnold, APS March 9, 2005

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 2 What do I want? To alleviate the guilt when someone mentions “documentation of the installed control system”. “As-built drawings” To allow for quick, yet well-documented changes. -e.g. “We need a thermocouple on the septum magnet for the next machine studies … tomorrow” To allow for quick, yet well-documented changes by a substitute staff member. -e.g. “… and George isn’t here today!” To provide convenient & thorough information for fast troubleshooting [i.e. helpful documentation] To provide convenient and thorough information to “on-call” staff for systems for which they are unfamiliar. -“I can’t talk to the Attenuator in Sector 7” -“There is a white box on my medm screen”

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 3 What do I want? To make the learning curve of applications less steep To automate finding the root cause of a communication problem To run numerous “integrity crawlers” for constant monitoring of the health of the control system (self generating?) To alleviate the guilt when someone mentions “documentation of the installed control system”.

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 4 What doesn’t work? Maintaining accurate information on the thousands (~15,000+) of installed devices and hundreds of independent applications is not manageable with a “Revision Controlled Drawing” approach. -Our control system is not static. -There are many “soft” entities that defy drawings. -Different “views” of the system are needed at different times, yielding redundant drawings. -Drawings cannot be “queried”.

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 5 Drawings are not maintainable

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 6 What might work? What do we want to document? Process Variables All PV definitions in all the IOC’s Provides an aggregate collection of the entire “distributed database”

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 7 What might work? What do we want to document? IOC’s (CAS’s) All active IOC’s IP # Contact Person Ethernet Connections Boot path etc, etc, etc

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 8 What might work? What do we want to document? Components All installed components VME /VXI Modules Instruments Racks etc, etc, etc

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 9 What might work? What do we want to document? Cables All installed cables Ambitious, but necessary

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 10 What might work? What do we want to document? Installed ‘Applications’ A collection of functions (databases, seq programs, etc.) that can be identified as a unique “application”: LINAC Beam Position Monitors Bunch Compressor Scraper Storage Ring Injection Kicker PS Control SR Vacuum Valve Interlocks

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 11 What might work? What do we want to document? Process Variables IOC’s (CAS’s) Components Cables Must document all of these installed entities … and …

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 12 What might work? What do we want to document? and their relationships to one another -Components are related to other components by - how they communicate control information - how they are housed - how they are powered -Applications are related to PVs, Components, etc -IOCs are related to Components, PVs, Applications -Cables are related to Components (via ports)

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 13 All entities are inter-related … Given a PV, one can determine: Applications Devices, IOC Cables Given a IOC, one can determine: Applications Devices Cables PVs Given a Cable, one can determine: Device, IOC PV Applications

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 14 What can it tell me? What process variables are associated with this device? What process variables were added, changed, or removed since the last run? Where does the other end of this cable go? What components do all of these non-functioning devices have in common? Which module type in this system has the worst reliability history? How many devices of a particular model number are installed? Where are all the devices of a particular model number installed? What application software will be affected if this device is removed? What equipment will be affected when this breaker is locked-out?

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 15 What do I get? No guilt when someone mentions “documentation of the installed control system”. Quick, yet well-documented changes. Quick, yet well-documented changes by a substitute staff member. Convenient & thorough information for fast troubleshooting [helpful documentation] Convenient and thorough information to “on-call” staff for systems for which they are unfamiliar. -“This PV isn’t working” -“I can’t talk to the Attenuator in Sector 7” -“There is a white box on my medm screen”

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 16 Benefits of a relational database approach Utilizing relational database technology and defining connections between the entities yields the benefits of extensive querying capabilities through the tables of data. -Immediate tracing of a fault to the root cause -Predicting what applications will break when a module is removed -Locating every instance of a particular device Convenient and expedient [ i.e. really cool ] tools encourage wide participation in keeping the data current

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 17 Three Relationships of Components: Control/Housing/Power

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 18 How do we get there? Two approaches -Descriptive (describes what is installed) -Prescriptive (defines what is to be installed) An exhaustive prescriptive solution has not been accomplished (as far as we know) We think an exhaustive descriptive solution is within reach Having an exhaustive descriptive solution may alleviate some difficult requirements on a prescriptive solution (e.g. history) An exhaustive descriptive solution and a partial prescriptive solution may certainly co-exist. Question: Are an exhaustive descriptive solution and an exhaustive prescriptive solution redundant? -If yes, not until someone succeeds -If no, then we all ought to do the easy one first

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 19 How do we get there? We feel that everyone can benefit from an exhaustive descriptive approach and that it is complementary to the prescriptive efforts being undertaken.

Pioneering Science and Technology Office of Science U.S. Department of Energy 20 What do I want? An identification of those areas where there is the most overlap of needs. An intense collaboration to fulfill those needs in a way that can be extended to accommodate site specific requirements. If we can leverage enough resources, we feel that it is entirely possible to deliver an exhaustive descriptive approach (that can be used at any EPICS site) by the end of This does not obviate the need for prescriptive solutions. In fact, it might make them easier.