the Control System? Stephane Deghaye (BE-CO) Many thanks to all the - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

How to improve interactions with the Control System?

14-12-2016 Evian’16 2

Stephane Deghaye (BE-CO)

Many thanks to all the colleagues who gave me feedback on the interaction with Accelerator Control System

Evaluation criteria

• Accelerator Controls in 2016:
• System availability: 99.89%
• Raw fault time: 9h 81
• Source: AFT (08-12-2016)
• Main contributors:
• WorldFIP
• Timing
• Front-end HW

2 4 6 8 10 2 4 6 8 10 Availability

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Accelerator Controls’ Availability in 2016

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• The most important criterion for

the Control System

• Not the only criterion to be
• ptimised. Much more is expected

Evaluation criteria

• Maintainability:
• Low-level renovation (ACCOR)
• Finishes in LS2 (Post-ACCOR)
• High-level SW consolidation (InCA)
• Cost:
• Factor 2 to 3 reduction with recent

platforms

• Still expensive for high-end HW

(OASIS)

• Exportability:
• Difficult to contribute from outside
• GSI uses our solutions

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2 4 6 8 10 Availability Maintainability 2 4 6 8 10 Availability Maintainability Cost 2 4 6 8 10 Availability Maintainability Cost Exportability

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Evaluation criteria

• UX: person’s emotions and

attitudes using a particular product, system or service [1]. Highlight the human-product interaction

• Usability: How the system eases
• r impedes the performance of a

supported task

• Flexibility: How easy it is to

extends the system with new needs/features

Evian’16 – S. Deghaye (BE-CO)

2 4 6 8 10 Availability Maintainability Cost Exportability 2 4 6 8 10 Availability Maintainability Cost Exportability Usability Flexibility

[1] Wikipedia

2 4 6 8 10 Availability Maintainability Cost Exportability User Experience

Users?

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LHC Operators ABP Physicists

RF Developers

Operator 1st line Diagnostic MD User Software Developer (HL & LL) Hardware Developer R O L E S Etc.

UX issues with current system

• Interview with key users

 Control System is Complex & Heavy

• Complexity impedes Usability
• Tools* are inadequate for some common tasks
• Technical & Organisational inflexibility
• Several solutions to a single problem (Acc CS, SCADA, …)

* Tools: end-users GUIs & programming languages

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Usability issues – a few examples

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FESA FGC

JAPC/CMW

CALS InCA/LSA

SILECS

PM SIS

CCDB

• Heterogeneous APIs
• ≠ sources ⇒ ≠ behaviour
• Configuration marathon:

Many steps that are manual w/o self-evident transitions

TN GPN

Alarms

DIAMON

Availability on GPN not consistent

Usability – Development tasks

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Develop Release Deploy Import Configure Test

Operational Timing ONLY

• Feature set not consistent
• Vertical testing not possible
• Long iteration time

Low-level dev cycle

Flexibility - Technical

• Heavy dev process prevents quick test

and fast-iteration developments

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Hardware under DEV Driver FESA Class

• Infrastructure geared

toward stable operation ? ?

Flexibility - Organisational

• Needs are immediate, not solutions
• Priorities (requester vs provider)
• Limited resources (provider)

 Ad-hoc solutions appear - maintainability issues

• Who does what?
• Responsibility limits
• Long-term maintainability

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Usability improvements

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• Look at Control System use-cases

instead of at service use-cases

• Role-based & task-oriented Tools

New services in existing tools No new specific tools (e.g. CALS)

Usability improvements

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Software developers Feature set must make sense throughout the CS & Full stack must be available in DEV

Usability improvements

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Convention

• ver

Configuration Device/Property API CMW CALS LSA Timing PM OP MD Users & App developers  Reduce API fragmentation … Less config tools & more homogeneous behaviour

Flexibility improvements

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Courtesy C. Pascual-Izarra et al.

Taurus & Sardana Community dev

• Embrace relevant RAD environments (e.g. Python)
• Depart from Provider/Client model & open up to sector-

wide collaborations

• Python Focus Group

Others:

• Web dev
• Inspector
• FESA, etc.

Summary

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• Excellent operational availability

 To be kept at that level

• Improving maintainability

 LS2 should see the maximum being reached

• Improvement of the interactions
• Role-based, task-oriented analysis & tools
• More flexibility thanks to RAD tools & collaborations
• Work towards an integrated Accelerator Control System