Epics Configuration Management

1
Epics Configuration Management

• Steve Hunt
• v1.0

2
Goals

• Maximize control system availability
• Minimize development cycle time
• Reduce risk

3
Maximize system availability

• Do all possible testing off-line
• Fast deployment
• Fast roll-back in case of failure

4
Minimize development time

• Make simple changes fast to implement
• Make it easier to follow procedure than bypass it

5
Minimize Risk

• Only make necessary changes to control system
• Can deploy first on single (non-critical) system

6
Part 2

• Functions

7
Upload of

• Templates created externally (VDCT etc...)
• Substitution files
• Dbd files
• Startup scripts
• Binaries (core, libraries, snl,...)
• Everything for a particular IOC!

8
Generation of

• Boot directory structure and files for each IOC
• Files can have version number extensions to allow
  multiple versions, for example of templates, per
  IOC.
• Possible to restrict rights so that only DB can
  write to boot directory

9
Other features

• Easy to install and operate no oracle knowledge
  necessary.
• Can run on stand alone system even a laptop.
• Not Oracle version dependent
• Display differences between versions (tkdiff)
• Direct modification of config files on-line

10
Commands/Menus
11
System View

• Displays list of systems
• Add/modify/delete
• Upload opi,alh, archiver configs

12
Device Support View

• Displays list of available device/record support
• Display versions with comments
• Upload/Modify/Delete
• Add to one or more IOCs

13
IOC view

• Lists IOCs in system
• Add/modify/delete an IOC

14
IOC modify

• Lists current versions and history of changes
• Modify Epics core version
• Modify version of records
• Modify version of device support
• Modify version of templates
• Modify version of substitutions
• Modify version of startup script
• Modify location of boot directory
• Roll-back to any date/version subset
• direct editing is possible

15
Conclusions

• Using an RDB will simplify the configuration of
  an Epics installation
• This will make necessary changes faster and less
  error prone
• This will in turn lead to reduced accelerator
  downtime