March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

RDB and EPICS

The World According to SLAC

Ideas and Implementations by:

J. Rock, D. Rogind, S. Allison

March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

History of attempts

• Old SLC system– Controls database is a collection of flat files– Cabling and maintenance databases not complete

• PEP-II (mid ’90s)– Started late– Some EPICS (first at SLAC)– Odd collection with duct tape and wire

• SPEAR– Small project; limited goals

• LCLS– The chance to do it right; mostly EPICS

March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

SPEAR’s Way

• DEC RDB (not ORACLE or MySQL)

• IOCs report PV information on boot

• PV information includes INP/OUT

• Used to resolve mix ups

March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

LCLS Future

• Looking for an RDB person

• Naming convention meeting as we speak– Steve Lewis has joined from LLNL

• Looking to do as much as possible

• Central PV help just a beginning

• Interested in our outcome

March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

ESD Software (our part)

• Need good up-to-date list of PVs

• Needs to include “other” system

• Management of secondary data important– Archiver data– Channel Watcher data (save/restore)– Alarm Handler data

March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

Other System

• Has EPICS version of name

• Code to generate list worked once

• Fairly static now

March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

Secondary Systems

• Not just record names, but fields– Save/Restore might want .LOPR, for example

• Ease of choosing names– Singly– In groups by pattern

• Ease of setting parameters– Singly– In groups by pattern

March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

Notes from Judy

– The UI we need:• Is convenient, easy to use, intuitive. • Is probably web-based.• Allows mass import of data• Allows field-by-field editing• Allows update of groups of things, with as many

cut/paste/filldown/automatic options as possible• Has plenty of reports so we can easily see and communicate

what we have in the db structure.• Maps easily into our normal view of the data (i.e. we need to

easily identify and manipulate an epics .db or template, an alarm tree, a channel list.)

• Has security (one or more levels)

March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

ESD RDB Use

• Startup file crawling to produce• Old method for old system data• Tools to get secondary data right• Generation of secondary data files• LCLS may want .db generation too

• We also have cable databases and, in principle, power drawings

March 9-11 IRMIS Ron ChestnutSLAC

Tools

• I like to talk about – Functionality– Tables– Reports– Generating configuration files

• Task groups end up talking about– Which web tools?– Formal Oracle or ad-hoc generation