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1. The ESRF and it's control room
2. Introduction of the e-logbooks at ESRF (Before 2004)
3. 2004 - 2008
4. Intermediate Projects
5. Evolution of the elogbooks after 2008
6. Plans for the Future
7. Conclusions
8. References
9. Particle Accelerator Use Case
3. INTERMEDIATE PROJECTS
Moving definitively to a Control Room electronic logbook was a task not to be taken lightly and its potential irreversibility required thorough groundwork. We decided at ESRF to build intermediate and useful projects. This was made possible by the fact that this software is fully configurable and can adapt to any project requiring an interface to a database.
Control Room Procedures
The first project was create a database with all the Control Room procedures. This includes technical documentation linked to all types of equipment, minutes of technical meetings, safety procedures, etc. Using the powerful "child" property, each of these documents is classified into one or several sub-category(ies) (using the multi combo box property). Every group of the Machine Division has been invited to record all their procedures on our database so as to have real centralized information readable by everyone.
To date, our experience has been extremely positive and every operator can now recover any document in an instant!
E-LogBook in a particular Group or Beam Line.
The Power Supply Group of our Accelerator Division has configured the JLogBook so as to use it as an internal e-logbook. The goal is to classify all their equipment in classes of equipment, and sub equipment. In another field called "Event", there are several options such as 'modification', 'intervention', 'failure', 'upgrade', 'alarms', etc. Every time a technician acts on a piece of equipment, he reports this in the e-logbook so as to inform his colleagues on-line about what has been done. The filtering process is particularly interesting when it is necessary to see the history of the work carried out on a given piece of equipment.
When the event option is a "fault", an automatic e-mail is sent to all the group members so as to inform them immediately about an equipment failure. This way to use an e-logbook has been enthusiastically welcomed by other groups who now use it for internal technical archiving/exchanges purposes. This is now adopted by many beam lines.
Control Room Electronic Logbook
Finally, after having created more than 10 projects and being sure that the St James electronic logbook met all requirements, we built the structure of the Control Room e-logbook which was introduced in June 2006. It included almost all the possibilities offered by the software which are described above. This logbook was enthusiastically welcomed by the Operators. Particularly appreciated were the emailing facility, screenshot/thumbnails facility and very powerful ways to filter and find any old information.
4. EVOLUTION OF THE ELOGBOOKS AFTER 2008
The next important step for ESRF was to connect the next logbook version with the ESRF Tango control system.
4.1 The link between e-logbook and ESRF Control system
4.1.1 About Tango
Tango is a Control system framework based on distributed objects using the CORBA protocol. ESRF Initially designed it in the year 2000 then it has been adopted by several lights sources in Europe in the frame of a collaborative development agreement. The collaborating institutes are SOLEIL, ELETTRA, ALBA and recently DESY for the control of PETRA 3 beamlines. Each collaborating institute engaged itself to use TANGO to control their accelerator and/or beamlines and agree to participate to the development and maintenence of TANGO.
4.1.2 J5 / Tango : Connection Tests
We had to test several features of Tango. The first test we performed was importing a device server and reading its attributes. We managed to automatically fill instantaneous storage ring current. These enhancements will allow J5 to automatically generate messages on specific events and retrieve historical data from Tango database. To perform such automatic data access, we are using the logbook as a subscriber for Tango events. When Tango sends events, the logbook is able to generate automatic logs and record them in its own database.
4.1.3 Real Application
After successful tests, the first real application was required. We decided to replace the history loggers of the storage ring power supplies by an automatic j5 logbook. This automatic logbook imports the TANGO device server of each power supply and subscribe to the "CHANGE" event. Thus, if a problem occurs on a power supply, it is automatically logged and accessible through the J5 web interface.
4.2 j5 Functionality (St James / Olivier)
The j5 System is a next generation logbook built from the ground up following the experiences at ESRF and other industrial sites. In addition to the facilities already available in the previous version, the system provides the following features:
- At ESRF, when it was found that the Logbook was such a useful and versatile tool, users quickly created many logbooks. The j5 system provides a Tab Based framework of managing and coordinating these multiple logs in a Hierarchical Structure. Logbooks can now be arranged in a logical structure where logbooks reside under tabs that represent the individual departments. Logbooks per individual beam lines can now be implemented and managed efficiently.
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Filtering and Searching has shown to be of paramount importance. The j5 system filtering has been substantially improved and integrated into the main page making it easier to create sophisticated filters and get immediate results. Additionally, special custom filter buttons can be added to meet the needs of frequently used filters.
- Creation of a new wizard based configuration system that enables new logbooks to be added in as little time as half an hour.
- The presentation facilities have been improved substantially allowing new and more representative forms of visualizing the information. It is also now very easy to configure these advanced features through the wizard.
- There are new forms of presentation within the logbook like charts, photographs and special scriptable buttons which are configurable through the wizard.
- LDAP authentication is now possible which means the management of large numbers of users can be done in a central location.
- Integration of real time data from the Tango system into the Logbooks as described above.
- Co-ordination of multiple logbooks. Operators are notified by a visual indication when a log is added or modified in a logbook they are not looking at. Drill down combos can relate to multiple logbooks so simplifying the design of the logbooks and providing a level of uniformity.
- Provision of a series of standard off-the-shelf applications like Work Permit, Inspection Rounds, Time Tracking, Alarm Management etc.
- A special class of logbooks that are shift sensitive to enable easier management of handover logs.
- The ability to have logbooks within logbooks. These sub-logbooks are especially useful, for example, when a main event has several sub events that are tied to the main event.
- The ability to add Dashboard type logbooks and "ripple through reporting" which allows the scheduling of daily, weekly and monthly reports that can be printed out in spreadsheet or pdf format.
- A powerful, simple and configurable emailing system. Users can configure when to send an email to whom from a central fill-in-the-blanks screen.
- Third party applications can now directly access the applications, adding and modifying logbooks under programmatic control whilst at the same time obeying the logbook business rules.
4.3 Hardware & OS & databases & BACKUPS (Olivier / Chaize / St James)
- J5 has been connected with Tango control system. This is performed through PyTango, the python binding for Tango. It allows any J5 logbook to access scalar and spectrum attributes of any Tango device around the accelerator.
- J5 is now running on a ESRF/Linux OS [2].
- Moreover, J5 is running a mySQL 5 database which will increase the compatibility with ESRF computing systems [3].
- We also managed to connect the ESRF LDAP server with J5. This increase security and compatibility with the ESRF computers.
- J5 has been installed for operation on a specific Linux machine. It is a DELL Poweredge®, DUAL core Intel XEON, 4 GB of RAM, 2 SATA disks of 500 GB each with a RAID1 controller, redundant « hotplug » power supply. The package also contains a 3 year warranty on site for hardware failure in 8 hours. This new hardware is combined to a system and data backup performed by Computing Services with Time Navigator®. This brings up a performance and reliable system for data logging at the ESRF.
5. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
Now that the j5 logbook structure is modular and designed for expansion, the future is open to various exciting options.
- With the new simplified configuration wizard, plans are underway to create logbooks for each beam line. The creation and organization of these logbooks which may be individually tailored to meet the specific needs of each station is now quite feasible.
With the requirement for more logbooks, we are streamlining and simplifying the configuration process. It is now very easy to create powerful and practical logbooks with a minimum of training. We are also investigating new ways to make this configuration more intuitive and to cover a wider sphere of operations.
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- It is now possible to replace the tedious manual process of creating management reports (daily, weekly, monthly etc.) with the new ripple through reports. These reports automatically select important data from various sources, (e.g. logbooks and Tango data) and perform the calculations and formatting to deliver the reports via email in spreadsheet or pdf format to the nominated recipients automatically and punctually.
- Logbooks may now be accessed via PDA's like the iPod so that users can see and make modifications while remote from their offices. The format of the logbooks could be automatically scaled to meet the smaller size of the PDA screen.
A new series of applications are currently being developed now that the jLogbook runs on PDA's.
These include: Inspection Rounds, Downtime Managers, Time Trackers and others.
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- We expect the number of logbooks on a site as well as the number of users of logbooks to expand substantially to areas outside the control room. Additional facilities (such as navigation trees) are being added to effectively manage this expansion.
- Various specialized logbooks are now under consideration. These include logbooks such as Work Permits, Down Time Managers, Safety Procedures and Scheduling Logbooks.
It is now possible to create logbooks that were previously considered only possible in paper and duplicates. Using the underlying business rule engine, the logbook can be made to easily enforce the management processes required for the system.
In the example above, a true electronic Work Permit system has been implemented. Other Logbooks under development include: Time Tracker, Downtime Analyzer, Alarm Manager, Shift, Daily and Weekly Reports etc.
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- With the link to the Tango system now functional, it is possible to create a richer family of logbook. For example it is possible to create a series of dashboard logbooks which could provide drill down key performance indicators for management, or interactive ad hoc query logbooks for the real-time data.
- Logbooks within Logbooks. j5 has the ability to include multiple sublogs for a single log. This is a logbook inside another logbook. In the example below, a single inspection round log has multiple tasks attached to each log.
- Every j5 Logbook has a unique and logical reference id (A). To link to a logbook, the user just types in the Reference ID (B) and when a user clicks this link, the detailed display of the log in the other logbook pops up (C).
In this example below, a user in the Procedures Logbook has thrown up a specific log in the Power Supply Logbook.
6. CONCLUSIONS
After 4 years of experience with a commercial electronic logbook distributed by a specialized company in this area, we confirm that the choice was the good one: all the required functionalities (and even more) we wanted have been implemented. It can be used not only in a Control Room but in any groups or beamline to archive technical data or troubleshooting procedures. The e-logbook has been interfaced with our Tango control system which was a major step to generate filtered automatic logs. The interface can be adapted to any control system making this electronic logbook an added value not only for the Tango community but for any particle accelerator.
7. REFERENCES
[1] JlogBook is a product of the St James Software Company: http://www.sjsoft.com/
[2] ESRF/Linux documentation : http://www.esrf.fr/Infrastructure/Computing/ControlComputers/ESRFLinux/
[3] mySQL website : http://www.mysql.com/
[4] Corba website: http://www.omg.org
[5] TANGO website: http://www.tango-controls.org
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