GTC control system toolchain and continuous integration modernization

Abstract

Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), featuring a 10,4 meters segmented primary mirror, is nowadays the largest optical and infra-red telescope in operation since it started its scientific production in 2009. GTC operation is enabled by the GTC Control System (GCS), a large, complex, real-time distributed system, which coordinates manifold hardware and software components. A custom script-based toolchain was written to support developing and building software components for GCS, and it’s also responsible for packaging new releases and development kits for instrument builders as a whole. Thus, continuous integration process is heavy and release deployments are cumbersome. In order to break such allocation monolith, an initiative is under way to rethink GCS building and deployment procedures to use more modern, commonly available and extensible tools. Using tools as CMake, Conan and rpm it’s possible to leverage existing components and their dependencies in building and deployment time, so component tailored deployments will be possible. This modular approach to build and deploy GCS will reduce release cycle times and invested effort. Finally, taking advantage of this proven control system for new telescopes makes sense, as several common high level telescope operations work pretty much the same. As a project’s positive side effect, new telescopes could take the GCS components useful for them and just develop new components for specific elements not found at GTC (e.g.: instruments, actuators, . . . ), and even contribute improvements beneficial to all parties. This paper reports on the current status of the project, challenges found, decisions made, milestones reached and future steps.