Re: Listing channels

[Claude Saunders <saunders@aps.anl.gov>]

Hi David,
I can throw another possibility into the mix for you. A few EPICS sites 
use a relational-database based system we (Don Dohan, et. al.) created 
here called IRMIS (Integrated Relational Model of Installed Systems). 
It's rather elaborate, encompassing component configuration, asset 
management, PV management, and more. See http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/irmis

Regarding PVs, we have a pv_crawler (perl script) that scans all the 
IOC's boot files (st.cmd) and pulls in all the detail about what dbd and 
db files are used, every PV in the system, every field of every PV, and 
more. All this is maintained in a MySQL database, and there is a PV 
Viewer application (Java) which gives you a view of the full PV namespace.

This may be overkill for you - and also your geographic distribution 
would make crawling data into a central database more difficult.

  regards, Claude


David Dudley wrote:
> Seems this question has generated an excessive amount of "why?"s.  Let
> me explain a little better.
>
> I'm implementing EPICS for a Potable Water Production and Distribution
> system.  Our area spans a region about 50 miles wide, and perhaps 200
> miles long, and we service roughly 1,250,000 customers.  In the field,
> we have around 40 remote sites, that are connected together through
> various forms of communications - some very fast and reliable -
> others... well, we have a number of sites where we're lucky if we get a
> 1200 baud radio communications channel.
>
> Now- I want to install EPICS IOC's at all these sites.  Each IOC will
> operate mostly independently, with the exception of the interconnection
> PV's required to maintain control between sites.  They all act as
> independent network nodes, but all interoperate together to maintain a
> complete system.
>
> So far, so good.  Because of the remote locations and number of sites,
> I'm going to have a number of people each doing independent IOCs for
> these sites.  Each person will be responsible for only 4 or 5 sites.
>
> I've put together a document providing a naming convention for all
> sites, but have no 'direct' way to enforce it, nor even to verify
> compliance with it.
>
> Say, I want the discharge pressure at a particular site.  I look at my
> drawings, and discover that the target name is PIT1500 (in
> instrumentation nomenclature, that's a "P"ressure "I"ndicating
> "T"ransmitter - a field instrument).  If I know my site name is 'sdps',
> and I have an IP address for that site, I want a way to insure that the
> PV in the field is named 'sdps:PIT1500.VAL'.  An easy way, would be if I
> could just tell a program "go out to the 'sdps' site, and give me a list
> of the items I can acquire from there".
>
> That's one purpose.  Another is this:  During commissioning and startup
> on a site, we want to acquire and store EVERY piece of information
> available from that site.  My choices are limited to logging into the
> IOC, and dumping a list (using dbl), or loading the database and
> acquiring all the record names either automatically or manually.  Now,
> for a few of these sites, the developer would like to say their code is
> "proprietary?", and limit access.  So, having a way to remotely generate
> a list would give me the ability to generate a list of items to acquire,
> without having to get access to the device, or without the author even
> being aware that I'm doing such.
>
> Also, just as an independent note, it seems like a useful debugging
> tool, to make sure what I think I told the IOC is actually what the IOC
> thought I told it.
>
> David Dudley
>
>
>   
> > > > "Jeff Hill" <johill@lanl.gov> 5/7/2008 10:46:16 AM >>>
> > > >         
>
>   
> > 1. Is there a method or application anywhere that can generate a list
> >     
> of
>   
> > the channels on a remote IOC?  I mean, a program I can point at the
> > IOC's address and have it generate a list of all the channels on
> >     
> that
>   
> > unit?
> >     
>
> >From my perspective...
>
> Presumably, the IOC should when it boots contact a list of (possibly
> redundant) servers who know about hierarchical names providing to each
> a
> complete list of the IOC's PV names. The protocol might have some
> requests
> like this.
>
> O define an object name specifying its type
> O undefined an object name
> O define a type name, specifying the types of its members and or its
> interfaces
> O undefined a type
>
> Presumably there are already some portable open source name resolution
> systems that provide this type of functionality.
>
> No matter how it gets implemented, a feature addressing the type of
> things
> that David is needing to implement _should_ be on the list for addition
> to
> EPICS base.
>
> Jeff
>
>   
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: tech-talk-bounces@aps.anl.gov
> >     
> [mailto:tech-talk-bounces@aps.anl.gov] 
>   
> > On Behalf Of David Dudley
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 8:27 PM
> > To: tech-talk@aps.anl.gov 
> > Subject: Listing channels
> >
> > Got 3 little questions:
> >
> > 1. Is there a method or application anywhere that can generate a list
> >     
> of
>   
> > the channels on a remote IOC?  I mean, a program I can point at the
> > IOC's address and have it generate a list of all the channels on
> >     
> that
>   
> > unit?
> >
> > 2. Does SDDS require X in order to compile?  It's a given that
> >     
> SDDSPlot
>   
> > is probably going to need X, but most of the apps don't have GUI's,
> >     
> so
>   
> > must X be available in order to compile them?  If not, how do you
> > generate the non-X programs?
> >
> > 3. Is there a program that will extract a portion of an SDDS file? 
> >     
> In
>   
> > order to use SDDS for archiving (which it looks like it might be
> >     
> very
>   
> > useful for), it's going to have to run forever on the IOC unit.  If
> >     
> I
>   
> > need to generate a dataset from a SDDS datafile, how do I pull out
> >     
> just
>   
> > the period (say... everything from yesterday, midnite to midnite)
> >     
> from a
>   
> > file that has much, much more information in it (days, weeks, or
> >     
> months
>   
> > ...)?  I can come up with stuff to cause it to restart, say once a
> >     
> week,
>   
> > but how do I pull out a subset of information?
> >
> > David Dudley
> >     
>
>   
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>
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