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<== Date ==> <== Thread ==>
Subject: Re: Advantages of running IOC on FPGA
From: Till Straumann via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
To: "Kunjir, Shriraj" <kunjir at frib.msu.edu>, "tech-talk at aps.anl.gov" <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2021 17:49:40 +0200
Raj.

Regarding network security: most facilities use firewalls and isolated network segments
for security.
This is orthogonal to your question - EPICS is not particularly secure (but neither is your
proprietary UDP protocol going to be).

Re. maintenance: yes, you will have to maintain EPICS on an additional target platform.
However, the zynq/arm target is well supported and I wouldn't expect any particular
problems. On the upside: you *only* have to support EPICS and won't have to maintain/support
your proprietary solution in addition to EPICS.

Again: communicating with hardware and providing a standardized networking interface
(channel-access) is pretty much the definition of an IOC under EPICS.

If IOC system load due to many clients is a concern then that is traditionally mitigated with
a channel-access gateway.

HTH
- Till


On 6/1/21 11:17 PM, Kunjir, Shriraj wrote:

Hi Till,

Thank you for your response. Could you please elaborate on the maintenance and network security aspect of such an LLRF controller when it runs IOC on its PS side Linux?

We are evaluating the potential of running IOC on our Zynq based LLRF controllers.

 

From: Till Straumann via Tech-talk
Sent: Tuesday, June 1, 2021 5:09 PM
To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov
Subject: Re: Advantages of running IOC on FPGA

 

[EXTERNAL] This email originated from outside of FRIB

I'd say that the 'traditionally' an IOC *is* actually executed on a front-end controller
with EPICS taking care of networking and control-system integration. This is what
EPICS was originally designed for. (IOCs running on embedded VME computer that
were directly talking to hardware).

When you don't run an IOC on the Zynq then you have to invent your proprietary
UDP protocol, write some sort of server that does I/O on the Zynq and some protocol
translation to EPICS on the 'IOC server'.

 FPGA <-> ZYNQ (I/O -> UDP) <-> ethernet <-> server (UDP -> EPICS)

You can eliminate all this effort simply by running an IOC on the zynq.

Cheers
- Till


On 6/1/21 10:14 PM, Kunjir, Shriraj via Tech-talk wrote:

Hello,

Could you please help in understanding the advantages of running IOC server on LLRF Zynq FPGA over the traditional method of a standalone IOC server connecting to LLRF FPGA via UDP. Thank you

Raj

 



Replies:
Re: Advantages of running IOC on FPGA Pete Jemian via Tech-talk
References:
Advantages of running IOC on FPGA Kunjir, Shriraj via Tech-talk
Re: Advantages of running IOC on FPGA Till Straumann via Tech-talk
RE: Advantages of running IOC on FPGA Kunjir, Shriraj via Tech-talk
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