CODA: a scalable, distributed data acquisition system

A new data acquisition system has been designed for physics experiments scheduled to run at CEBAF starting in the summer of 1994. This system runs on Unix workstations connected via ethernet, FDDI, or other network hardware to multiple intelligent front end crates-VME, CAMAC or FASTBUS. CAMAC crates may either contain intelligent processors, or may be interfaced to VME. The system is modular and scalable, from a single front end crate and one workstation linked by ethernet, to as many as 32 clusters of front end crates ultimately connected via a high speed network to a set of analysis workstations. The system includes an extensible, device independent slow controls package with drivers for CAMAC, VME, and high voltage crates, as well as a link to CEBAF accelerator controls. All distributed processes are managed by standard remote procedure calls propagating change-of-state requests, or reading and writing program variables. Custom components may be easily integrated. The system is portable to any front end processor running the VxWorks real-time kernel, and to most workstations supplying a few standard facilities such as rsh and X-windows, and Motif and socket libraries. Sample implementations exist for 2 Unix workstation families connected via ethernet or FDDI to VME (with interfaces to FASTBUS or CAMAC), and via ethernet to FASTBUS or CAMAC