Operations Software

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Operations Software

• Bryan Butler

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Introduction

• There are many diverse pieces of software needed
  for everyday operations that dont quite fit in
  to the overall architecture diagram - the things
  that the operators do on a day-to-day basis.
• We know about these software items because of
  their need in operating the VLA.
• Ill discuss some of these briefly now.

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Main Categories

• The software that operators generally run can be
  broken down into a few main categories
• Submitting jobs, including normal science
  observing, and a number of standard tests
• Monitoring the array
• Managing observing logs
• Keeping track of maintenance issues
• Tracking what gets observed
• Periodic checkups (shift, daily, weekly,
  monthly, quarterly)
• Asynchronous checkups (antenna acceptance, etc.)

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Example - Antenna Acceptance

• Before antennas can be used in regular
  operations, they must be demonstrated to actually
  be able to be used properly.
• A checklist has been developed for this.
• Operators are using it regularly.
• It is command line currently, morphing to be part
  of the Operators Interface in the near-term
  (months).
• Will have to be extended as needed, but
  sufficient for now

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Pointing, Baselines, etc.

• Operators need to be able to do all of these
  normal tasks
• Pointing (global antenna pointing model)
• Baselines (antenna location)
• Focus
• Delays
• Software exists to do this now, but it is only
  usable by experts - we need a conversion to more
  simple interfaces.

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Example - global reference pointing model
Modcomp only
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Example - global reference pointing model
Modcomp EVLA
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Example - global reference pointing model
EVLA, pre-WIDAR
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Example - global reference pointing model
EVLA, w/ WIDAR
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Standard Scripts

• There are a number of other pieces of the VLA
  operations software that are currently
  implemented as programs or special OBSERVE files
  that can be implemented as new jython scripts.
  This includes
• SYSTIP
• SYSSTART
• SYSFLUX
• SYSCORR
• SYSTEST
• MODCAL
• SNOW
• SYSMELT
• Etc
• We are in the process of converting these as
  needed.