National Ignition Facility and managing location, component, and state

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a stadium-sized facility that contains a 192-beam, 1.8-MJ, 500-TW, ultraviolet laser system coupled with a 10-m diameter target chamber. There are over 6200 Line Replaceable Units (LRUs) comprised of more than 104,000 serialized parts that make up the NIF. Each LRU is a modular unit typically composed of a mechanical housing, laser optics (glass, lenses, or mirrors), and utilities. To date, there are more than 120,000 data sets created to characterize the attributes of these parts. Greater than 51,000 Work Permits have been issued to install, maintain, and troubleshoot the components. One integrated system is used to manage these data, and more. The Location Component and State (LoCoS) system is a web application built using Java Enterprise Edition technologies and is accessed by over 1200 users. It is either directly or indirectly involved with each aspect of NIF work activity, and interfaces with ten external systems including the Integrated Computer Control System (ICCS) and the Laser Performance Operations Model (LPOM). Besides providing business functionality, LoCoS also acts as the NIF enterprise service bus. In this role, numerous integration approaches had to be adopted including: file exchange, database sharing, queuing, and web services in order to accommodate various business, technical, and security requirements. Architecture and implementation decisions are discussed.