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Overview of DAQ at CERN experiments

Overview of DAQ at CERN experiments. E.Radicioni, INFN - 20050901 - MICE Daq and Controls Workshop. Overview. DAQ architectures Implementations Software and tools. Some basic parameters. Overall architecture. This is LHCb, but at this level they all look the same.

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Overview of DAQ at CERN experiments

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  1. Overview of DAQ at CERN experiments E.Radicioni, INFN - 20050901 - MICE Daq and Controls Workshop

  2. Overview • DAQ architectures • Implementations • Software and tools

  3. Some basic parameters

  4. Overall architecture • This is LHCb, but at this level they all look the same. • Buffering on the FE, waiting for LV-0/1 decision • Building network • HLT filtering before storage.

  5. … but they DO differ right after the FEs CMS ALICE This is already a standard PC with Ethernet This is the entry point into a customized Myrinet network 1 EVB level 2 EVB levels

  6. DAQ: taking care of Data Flow • Building • Processing • Storage • Get the data to some network as fast as possible • Custom VS standard network technology • CMS & Alice as extremes • The others are in between

  7. CMS approach • Only 1 hardware trigger, do the rest in HLT  high DAQ bandwidth. • Flexible trigger, but rigid DAQ. Also partitioning less flexible. • Barrel-shifter approach: deterministic but rigid, customized network • 2-stage building

  8. ALICE approach • HLT embedded in the DAQ • More than one hardware trigger  not straightforward to change trigger • But DAQ can be very flexible with standard technology. Easy to partition down to the level of the single front-end • HLT / Monitoring

  9. Alice HLT

  10. List of DAQ functions (one may expect) • Run control (state machine) with GUI • Configure DAQ topology • Select trigger • Start/stop (by user or by DCS) • Communicate status to DCS • Partitioning. Its importance is never stressed enough. • Minimal set of hardware access libraries (VME, USB, S-LINK), and ready-to-use methods to initialize interfaces. • Data flow • Push (or pull …) data from FE to Storage via (one or more) layer of Event-Building • DAQ performance check with GUI • Data quality monitoring (or framework to do it) • GUI most likely external • Logging (DAQ-generated messages) with GUI to select/analyze logs

  11. What can you expect to be able to use out of these systems? • MICE  test beam system • Who’s providing the best “test beam” system? • Reduced scale, but keeping rich functionality • And software already available • Not only framework, but also ready-to-use applications and GUIs.

  12. All experiments more or less implement this: Main data flow ~ 10-100 KHz Spying data subset for monitoring Also good for test beams, ~ 1KHz Support for test beams vary from one experiment to the other, from barebone system (just framework) to full-fledged support

  13. CMS: public-domain framework, called xdaq: http://xdaq.web.cern.ch/xdaq/ Just framework (data and message passing, event-builder). For the rest, you are on your own. • ALICE tends to support its detector teams with a full set of DAQ tools • Partitioning • Data transport • Monitoring • Logging • ATLAS similar to ALICE in this respect • However, at the times of HARP construction it was not yet ready for release to (external) groups.

  14. Readout • Clear separation of readout and recording functions • Readout high-priority (or read-time), recorder low priority (quasi-async) • Large memory buffer to accommodate for fluctuations

  15. User-provided functions A clear, simple way for the user to initialize and read out its own hardware

  16. Event builder • Running on a standard PC • Able to perform, at the same time: • Global or partial on-demand building • EVB strategies to be matched to trigger configurations • Event consistency checks • Recording to disk • Serving events to subscribers (i.e. monitoring) • With basic data selections • Possibly with multi-staging after the event-building

  17. Event format: headers and payloads, one payload per front-end Precise time-stamping, numbering and Ids on headers of each payload

  18. Ready-to-use GUIs Start/stop Select active processes and start them Configure and partition Set run parameters and connect Run control should be implemented as a state machine for proper handling of state change

  19. Run-control One run-control agent per DAQ “actor”

  20. Run-control partitioning Warning: to take advantage of DAQ partitioning, also TRIGGER has to support partition …  Requirement to TRIGGER system

  21. Logging • Informative logging with an effective user interface • Log filtering and archiving • Run statistic collection and reporting also useful

  22. Monitoring • A ready-to-use monitoring architecture • With a monitoring library as a software interface • Depending on DAQ systems, a global monitoring GUI (to be extended for specific needs) might be available already

  23. Recent trends: the ECS • An overall controller of the complete status of the experiment, including DCS • Partitionable state machine • Configuration databases • Usually interfaced to PVSS, but EPICS should also be possible

  24. Conclusions: never underestimate … • Users are not experts: provide them the tools to work and to report problems effectively. • Flexible partitioning. • Event-building with accurate fragment alignment and validity checks, state reporting and reliability. • Redundancy / fault tolerance • A proper run-control with state-machine • And simplifying to the users the tasks of Partition, Configure, Trigger selection, Start, Stop • A good monitoring framework, with clear-cut separation between DAQ services and monitoring clients • Extensive and informative logging • GUIs

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