Improving the Security and Performance of the BaBar Detector Controls System
Karen D. Kotturi

TL;DR
This paper describes how the BaBar detector control system was enhanced by relocating IOCs to a virtual LAN and implementing a gateway to improve security and performance without risking data-taking continuity.
Contribution
The authors introduced a network architecture change and a gateway solution that significantly improved security and prevented IOC hangs, while maintaining uninterrupted data collection.
Findings
Eliminated IOC hangs caused by network request overload
Enhanced security by isolating IOCs from the public network
Maintained data-taking continuity despite gateway failures
Abstract
It starts out innocently enough - users want to monitor Online data and so run their own copies of the detector control GUIs in their offices and at home. But over time, the number of processes making requests for values to display on GUIs, webpages and stripcharts can grow, and affect the performance of an Input/Output Controller (IOC) such that it is unable to respond to requests from requests critical to data-taking. At worst, an IOC can hang, its CPU having been allocated 100% to responding to network requests. For the BaBar Online Detector Control System, we were able to eliminate this problem and make great gains in security by moving all of the IOCs to a non-routed, virtual LAN and by enlisting a workstation with two network interface cards to act as the interface between the virtual LAN and the public BaBar network. On the interface machine, we run the Experimental Physics…
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Taxonomy
TopicsParticle Detector Development and Performance · Radiation Detection and Scintillator Technologies · Distributed and Parallel Computing Systems
