A new long-pulse data system for EAST experiments

A long pulse discharge requires high throughput data acquisition. As more physics diagnostics with high sampling rate are applied and the pulse length becomes longer, the original EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) data system no longer satisfies the requirements of real-time data storage and quick data access. A new system was established to integrate various data acquisition hardware and software for easy expansion and management of the system. Slice storage mechanism in MDSplus is now being used for the continuous and quasi real-time data storage. For every data acquisition thread and process, sufficient network bandwidth is ensured. Moreover, temporal digitized data is cached in computer memory in doubly linked circular lists to avoid the possible data loss by the occasional temporal storage or transfer jam. These data are in turn archived in MDSplus format by using slice storage mechanism called “segments”. For the quick access of the archived data to the users, multiple data servers are used. These data servers are linked using LVS (Linux Virtual server) load balance technology to provide a safe, highly scalable and available data service.