[evla-sw-discuss] Software System Design

[Kevin Ryan]

On Oct 1, 2009, at 12:42 PM, Sonja Vrcic wrote:

>  It would be absurd to have two or three alarm monitors, one for  
> each subsystem (antennas, correlator, CBE...).  All the alarms  
> should be displayed and handled by one tool.


I think it is a good idea for the various subsystems to monitor  
themselves.  As we discussed at the meeting, it is a good idea for the  
MCCC's ResourceManager to monitor the Station Boards and provide smart  
processing of alerts rather than simply having each Station Board send  
its alerts directly to the operator and require him or her to make the  
decisions.

The CPCC certainly cannot rely on EVLA's non-intelligent Alert Server  
and the operator to perform the necessary operations before the fire  
suppressant is dumped.  The requirements are quite specific about what  
must be done under various power, temperature and smoke alarm  
conditions; so much so that they also specify a second CPCC running in  
parallel to make as sure as possible that the job gets done.

Nor can a human be capable of keeping a birds-eye image in his mind of  
the status of power and temperatures in the room with a text-based  
alert server.  For instance, we just populated S002 with 16 Station  
Boards; it appears that some of the boards are getting a little  
toasty.  You can see this easily on the CPCC GUI and even notice the  
trend that it is the boards in the center of the top crate that are  
getting hot.  This would be difficult for an operator to visualize  
with a text-based alert server.

[I don't know if evla-sw-discuss allows screenshots but here is one of  
the board temps: ]
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I would be reluctant to dumb-down WIDAR and lose this great  
functionality.

Kevin