ACS CORBA-based Common Software for ALMA and other projects

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ACS CORBA-based Common Software for ALMA and
other projects

• G.Chiozzi, B.Gustafsson, B.Jeram, P.Sivera
  M.Plesko, M.Sekoranja, G.Tkacik, K.Zagar,
  D.Fugate
• ESO, CosyLab, NRAO

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Contents

• What is ALMA?
• Why a common software?
• What are the key ideas in ACS?
• What is the Architecture of ACS
• How are we going to go on?
• Who is using ACS?
• How can you get more information

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ALMA Project in Summary

• Joint project between astronomical organisations
  in Europe and North America (and Japan)
• 64 12-m antennas (25 microns, 0.6)
• Array configurations150m-10 Km
• Near S.Pedro de Atacama, Chile at 5000m
• Imaging capability over 10-0.35mm range
• 10 receiver bands
• very high resolution correlator

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ALMA Common Software (ACS)

• ALMA project is highly distributed many sites
  and many development cultures
• ACS aims at providing an answer to the following
  needs
• common application framework and programming
  model, not just libraries
• well tested software that avoids duplication
• make upgrades and maintenance reasonable
• incremental development via Releases
• standardisation offering environment with design
  patterns and their implementation (rather than
  pure rules).
• common configuration control/installation
  procedures
• It worked on a comparable size project the VLT

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ACS start-up Summer 1999

• Preliminary discussions on ACS objectives and
  structure
• experience from VLT and other projects
• New technology CORBA, Java, XML
• Decided to start from existing product, to make
  use of CORBA experience.
• Collaboration with JSI-Ljubljana to further
  develop existing system built for High Energy
  Physics (ICALEPCS 99, Trieste).

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ACS Architecture
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Component-Container Model

• A Component-Container based architecture
  emphasizes Separation of Concerns.
• Same idea as .NET, EJB, CCM
• Container manages components
• Lifecycle interface (init, start, stop, update)
• Service interface (what component offers)
• Optional security, persistency, transactions

Component 1
Component 2
Client
Container
...
Component 3
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ACS Deployment diagram
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DO-Property-Characteristics

• DO base class for any physical/logical
  Device(e.g. temperature sensor, motor)
• Each DO has Properties(e.g. status value,
  position - control/monitor points)
• Characteristics of Dos and Properties(Static
  data in Configuration DB, e.g. units, ranges,
  default values)
• ABeans

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Configuration Database

• Defining accessing and maintaining the
  configuration of a system
• Three-tier database-access architecture
• Database engine
• Database Access Layer (DAL).
• Database clients
• CORBA access interface
• XML/Schemas for OO data definition and access.

3 Database clients
Data client
CDB Administration
Read-writeadmin. interface
Read-only Data interface
2 Database Access Layer (DAL)
DAL/CDB Server
1 Database engine
Database
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Configuration Database DO Schemas
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Abeans visual editing
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TICS Control Panel
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OE and Admin Client
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Supported Platforms

• Operating system Linux, SUN OS, (MS-Windows)
• Real-time VME,VxWorks (Phase1), CAN bus
• Languages C, JAVA, Python
• CORBA middleware TAO ( ACE) (C), Orbacus
  (Java), Omniorb (Python), CORBA services.

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ACS Documentation
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ACS Installations
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ACS Status

• Oct. 2000 ACS v.0.0 (Prototype)
• Dec. 2000 KP test
• Sep. 2001 ACS Architecture Document
• Sep.2001 ACS 1.0
• Apr. 2002 ACS 1.1 (support for TICS) In use in
  Test Interferometer Software (TICS) prototype
• Nov. 2002 ACS 2.0
• We plan an incremental release every 6 months

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ALMA SitesChajnantor
www.eso.org/projects/alma
www.alma.nrao.edu/development/computing
www.eso.org/gchiozzi/AlmaAcs
http//kgb.ijs.si/KGB/
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Conclusion

• Developed based on the experience of both
  astronomical and accelerator control projects
• Can easily run on many platforms
• Open source (GPL licence)
• Free development tools and ORBs
• We think that many other projects can use ACS
• A wider users base can provide valuable feedback

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Extra slides

• The following pages contain some extra slides
  that we do not plan to show at the conference,
  but that could be useful.

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Data Channel
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DO
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Logging
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Management and Access Control
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Archiving System
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How much effort in ACS 1.1?

• Source lines of code (for comments add about 10)
  for
• ACS cmm Modules (code developed for ACS)
• Java Abeans (mostly code inherited from ANKA)
• SLOC Directory SLOC-by-Language (Sorted)
• 61730 ACS cpp61536,sh129,tcl28,sed23,
  csh14
• 188820 Java java188820
• Total Physical Source Lines of Code 252019
• Estimated Development Effort in Person-Years
  66.46(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months 2.4
  (KSLOC1.05))
• Total Estimated Cost to Develop
  8977317(average salary 56286/year, overhead
  2.4).
• Data generated using 'SLOCCount' by David A.
  Wheelerhttp//www.dwheeler.com/sloccount/sloccoun
  t.html
• More than 2000 pages of printable
  design/reference documentation