JAERI-Conf 95-021

PB15Team development system
for accelerator control software on the WAN
Y.SHIBASAKI, M.MUTOH, I.ABE* and K.NAKAHARA*
Laboratory of Nuclear Science, Tohoku University(LNS)
1-2-1 Mikarnine, Taihaku-ku, Sendai-shi 982, Japan*Photon Factory, National Laboratory for High Energy Physics(KEK)
1-1 Oho, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki-ken 305, Japan

1. Introduction
Highly efficient microprocessors have recently become
available at low cost, thus improving the available
semiconductor technology. As a result, for example,
microprocessors such as the 80X86 and Pentium areimproved versions of equipment used for personal
computers before. The CPUs (Alpha-AXP, PowerPC,
R4000 and etc.) are being manufactured with newarchitecture, such as RISC.
New operating systems(OS), such as WinoowsNT andOS/2, are running on highly efficient CPUs. They havepowerful graphical user Interfaces(GUI) with almost thesame ability as that of the UNIX workstations.
It has thus become possible to build medium-size
accelerator control systems based on personal computers.
This was difficult in the past because the OS had nocommunication functions among standard applications . In
accelerator control, it is often possible to use commercialproducts, except in special cases. When it is urgent tobuild a control system with few bugs, it is necessary tochoose the reasonable software from among commercial
packaged software. However, some programs must be madein-house for accelerator control. We therefore analyze thedomain structure of the accelerator from the control side,
thus necessitating an unrerstanding of the structure of theobjects and their relations.
LNS and KEKPF-Linac have started a new project for
accelerator control. We have thus analyzed the domain of
the accelerators from a mutual viewpoint, and haveestablished a project to find some common object between
them. One usefull possibility could be a productive
development of programming.
We therefore arranged a development environment usinga wide area network (WAN) for the following purposes:
1) An analysis of the accelerator domain from the control
side (using the OMT technique[11).

2) A cooperative verification of the developed program.
3) An efficient information exchange.

2. Features of WindowsNT
There are several kinds of OS that are used on personal
computers. Generally, OSs during the early stage weremade depending on the CPU architecture, and worked only
for a specific CPU. Now, since there are several kinds ofCPUs available for PCs, it is necessary to choose areasonable OS for accelerator control that doesn't depend on
the CPU architecture. We have therefore adopted
WindowsNT for building this team-revelopment
environment.
WindowsNT has various good points that do not exist in
personal computer OSs. ·we discuss those features which
we should adopted for accelerator control.
1) Support for existing MS-DOS and Windows-based
applications.
2) Processor-independence (It works on various CPU).
3) The network function is equipped as a standard
4) The security function is enriched.

5) Preemptive multitasking.
With such specific features, switching over to the newsystem while inheriting conventional property iscomparatively easy.

3. Team development environment
We have recided to use personal computers with
WindowsNT, and to buildateamdevelopmentenvironment(see Fig.l). Also, the specifications of the personal
computer used for its purpose are given in tablel.
WindowsNT, itself, provides a multi protocol network-289-JAERI-Conf 95-021

Below is an example of these files.
Contents of HOSTS file.
IP Address
Namecomment
130.87.xxx.xxx
PF-Linac#
130.34.xxx.xxx
LNS-Linac#
Contents ofLMHOSTS file
NameextensioncommentIP Address
130.87.xxx.xxx
PF-Linac #DOM:KEK#
130.34.xxx.xxx
LNS-Linac #DOM:THKLNS_NT #We have carried out a test concerning connections
betweenLNS and KEKPF-Linac.
A single-chmain connection was made during an earlystage. Then, a connection test among different domains wassuccessfully. The models used to build each domain server
are the following three kinds:

Fig.l Outline of the team development system1) Master domain model.
2) Multi master domain model.
3) Complete trust domain model.

Tablel Specification of the PCs
LNS side
WindowsNT Server
Maker:
Packard BellCPU:80486DX2(50MHz)
Memory size: 32Mbyte
WindowsNT ClientMaker:
DECCPU:
80486DX4(100MHz)
Memory size: 24Mbyte
KEKsideWindowsNT Server
Maker:DEC
CPU:
Alpha-AXP(150MHz)
Memory size: 64Mbyte

The single-chmain model and 1) or 2) listed above chn't
match our system, because all organization are located in
the distance and are independent. Therefore; this time acomplete trust chmain model has been used This model
can be realized by setting the trust relations among eachother. As a result, the resource that each has become iscapable of being shared.

4. The performance

function as the standard, and we faced few problems
concerning the local-network environment. The network
environment could be built only by installing an OS ineach personal computer only. Also, as for theWANconnection, it became possible by setting someparameters.
Generally, WindowsNTis connectedonNetBeuiprotocol.
Routers on the WAN is protected from protocols, expect
for TCPIIP. Therefor, to connect between WindowsNTs on
WAN it is necessary to use TCP/IP. Several of its files areexplained below. Descriptions of the HOSTS file and theLMHOSTS file are necessary for the setting. The HOSTS
is the file used to determine a computer name and an IPailiress in Internet. LMHOSTS is the file which refers tothe computer name and IP ailiress at the LAN manager.

The performance is measured based on the abovementionedenvironment. Incidentally, the OS ·of the newversion became smaller in memory size, and the speed wasimproved We used WinchwsNT Client3.5 andWindowsNT Server3.5 as an OS. The performance wasmeasured in terms of the speed of writing and reading of data
to the local disk and the remote disk over the WAN and theLAN. Since a measurement with the WAN and the LAN
environment is influenced by the network traffic, it
extracted the average value measured every hour. This resultis shown in Fig.2.

It became clear from the results of the measurements thatWinchwsNT is equal to or more than twice as fast as
Winchws3.1. Also, it depends on the condition, we haverecognized the result that LAN is faster at writing than thelocal disk ofWinchws3.1. The speed which is running on
the WAN was about 5-20Kbytels, because it hasbottlenecks on the routes of the Network as well as various-290-JAERI-Conf 95-021

routers. The routing of the Network is shown in Fig.3.
Many people are presently using the Internet and Network,
the traffic is thus quite crowded. To improve this situation,
the backbone on the mutual network connection must be
mare thick by one who manage network systems. For us,
this result is satisfactory, except when using multimedia,
where we believe that it isn't sufficient.

1500

!

(a)

1000

1 AR-0900.net.tohoku.ac.jp (130.34.8.40)
2 sasaya.gw.tohoku.ac.jp (130.34.11.13)
3 kahoku.topic.ad.jp (130.34.1 0.2)
4 new-tohoku.bb.sinet.ad.jp (150.99.2.1)
5 new-nacsis.bb.sinet.ad.jp (150.99.118.1)
6 nishi-chiba.bb.sinet.ad.jp ( 1 50.9 9. 90. 1)
7 otsuka.sinet.ad.jp (150.1 00.127.1)
8 kek-jix.sinet.ad.jp (150.1 00.1.1 01)
9 jp-hepnet-kek-jix.kek.jp (130.87.220.1)
10 kekcis2.kek.jp (130.87.43.4)
11 KEKNIE.kek.jp (130.87.1.14)
12 abe719as.kek.jp (130.87.160.26)

2000

~

scheduling functions, which in the commercial software
have been used for efficiency of information exchange.

J

Computer Center ofTohoku Umvemty

JNational Center for Science
InformatiOn System

JComputing Center of National
Laboratory for High Energy
Physics

Comparative pictuure
between Windows3.1 andWindowsNT.

5000100NI-NET
LAN

350300(b)Disk access speed on the250..~•llOMByte/s
I KEK
ABE719AS .
....________LAN.

Mesured in Augusl 15 - i 6200__./Fig.3 Routes betweenLNS and KEK15010050

10152025

6. Conclusions
A team-development environment using WindowsNTwas
completed on the WindowsNT Network. With this, areinforcement of cooperative development in programmingis possible, and a cooperative-development analysis for theaccelerator domains will be promoted The network
environment of WindowsNT 1s excellent, and theperformance is sufficiently practical, except for thecommunications required in real time, and a great <ka1 of(c)Disk access speed on theWAN.
Mesurd in August 17 ~ 18

Fig.2 Chart comparing each access speed.

information communication.

5. Operations
The possible operations on the WindowsNT WAN are
listed below. OMT is the main application program, whichruns on the WAN betweenLNS and KEKPF-Linac. OMTis being used for our team to develop in accelerator control
programming[21 •7. References
James Rumbaugh et al. " Object-oriented modelingand cksign. ", Englewood Cliffs, N.J. :Prentice Hall,
1991.
[2] I. ABE et al. " Analysis of the PLC object modd inthePF-Linac.", In this conference.

[1]1) File sharing by the mount with an identical volume.

2) Sharing of the Database servers.
3) Mail.
4) Schedule management.
A way of information exchange is necessary for us who are
working at distant locations from each other. Mail and-291-