New data visualization of the LHC Era Monitoring (Lemon) system

Abstract

In the last few years, new requirements have been received for visualization of monitoring data: advanced graphics, flexibility in configuration and decoupling of the presentation layer from the monitoring repository. Lemonweb is the data visualization component of the LHC Era Monitoring (Lemon) system. Lemonweb consists of two subcomponents: a data collector and a web visualization interface. The data collector is a daemon, implemented in Python, responsible for data gathering from the central monitoring repository and storing into time series data structures. Data is stored on disk in Round Robin Database (RRD) files: one file per monitored entity, with set of entity related metrics. Entities may be grouped into a hierarchical structure, called “clusters” and supporting mathematical operations over entities and clusters (e.g. cluster A + cluster B /clusters C – entity XY). Using the configuration information, a cluster definition is evaluated in the collector engine and, at runtime, a sequence of data selects is built, to optimize access to the central monitoring repository. In this article, an overview of the design and architecture as well as highlights of some implemented features will be presented.