Application for management and monitoring of xTCA hardware

The Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) standard describes a powerful platform, implementation of which is considered to be adopted as a base for the control system of the X-ray Free Electron Laser (X-FEL), being built at Deutsches Electronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, Germany. The Low Level Radio Frequency (LLRF) control system is composed of a few ATCA Carrier Boards. Each Carrier Board hosts an Intelligent Platform Management Controller (IPMC), which is developed in compliance with the PICMG specifications. IPMC is responsible for management and monitoring of components installed on Carrier Boards and pluggable Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) modules. The ATCA Shelf Manager is the main control unit of a single ATCA shelf, responsible for power management, fan modules and Carrier Boards installed in ATCA shelf. It provides a set of control and diagnostic capabilities regarding the shelf and its sub-modules. These capabilities are available for operators and can be used by higher level applications. This paper presents a software component intended to support management and supervision of the ATCA shelf and its sub-modules, including Carrier Boards with AMC modules. The application provides enhanced mechanisms of control and allows to acquire detailed information regarding status and parameters of crucial devices (e.g. power supply voltages, temperatures, presence of reference clocks). The information supplied from Shelf Manager combined with graphical user interface of the application provides visual representation of selected system components and contributes towards efficient control and supervision of Carrier Boards and entire ATCA-based platform.