Giovanni Organtini

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Software Tools at the Rome CMS/ECAL Regional
Center

• Giovanni Organtini
• INFN-Roma

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Introduction
80.000 Crystals!
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The ACCOR Machine
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CRISTAL

• Workflow Management System
• Configurable
• Interface with
• Humans
• Instruments
• Software
• Data Base System

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CRISTAL
O R B
PART BROWSER
Instrument Agent
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CRISTAL Browser
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(No Transcript)
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Manual Activity
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Instrument Activity
PM
IA
Instrument
CONNECT
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UML Model for Parts and Instruments
XMLParser
PartOnInstrument
Instrument
0..n
1
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OO Design strategy

• Follows known patterns whenever possible
• Every instrument in the Center uses the same
  pattern reusability
• No explicit pointer in the software use STL
  instead
• Provide shortcuts for few methods that MUST be
  fast

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OO Experience

• OO technology useful even for medium scale
  projects
• Formal tools and methods makes development faster
• No significant differences found in performances
  with respect to FORTRAN programs

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Operating Systems integration
CRISTAL
3D
TT/LT
LY
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Linux Choice
Dark Room
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VNC
Network
Client Linux/Windows VNC Application
Server Windows/Linux VNC Service

• Slow
• Single user

• Free-ware
• Easy to install
• Very useful

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VNC
Linux Desktop
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Windows vs Linux
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Web Tools

• ACCOR can be operated even manually
• It shall be operated by non-experts
• It shall be operated remotely
• ACCOR must be monitored even remotely
• Data must be available as soon as possible for
  fast analysis

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Documentation
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Command Definition for ACCOR
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Command Definition for ACCOR
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Offline Monitoring
This list is automatically generated (no
maintenance!)
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Offline Monitoring
The Perl script uses external graphics packages
to build plots (gnuplot in this case)
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System Monitoring
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Functional Decomposition
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Functional Decomposition

• Programs do not provide graphic interface
• Programs communicates by means of pipes or
  network messages
• Programs do not produce graphical output
• Suitable graphic browsers provide the interface
  (web browser or graphics manipulation programs)

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Commercial Products PROs

• Reduced development time
• Good quality documentation

• Persistency for free
• Good Tools
• Good DB organization
• Multi-platform

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Commercial Products CONs

• They promise, but
• Inadequate support
• Incompatibilities around the corner
• We are not the market!

• DRO/FTO unreliable
• Versioning unreliable
• Schema evolution unreliable
• Slow (?)

• Incompatibilities with other products
• Non CORBA-compliant

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Commercial Products Conclusions
There are no Universal Tools!
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Commercial Products Conclusions (II)
There are not Tools for problems that do not
exist (yes)
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Conclusions
Natural Language Uniform interface Improved
maintenance Performances Ok

• Object Oriented Programming
• Open Source
• Scripting Languages

Solve bugs rapidly No (or reduced)
incompatibilities
Extremely flexible Works in any environment
Not enough support incompatibilities possible

• Commercial products
• Programs with graphical interface

Limited access Integration problems