PHENIX on-line distributed computing system architecture

Abstract

PHENIX is one of the two large experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) currently under construction at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The detector consists of 11 subdetectors, that are further subdivided into 29 units (“granules”) that can be operated independently, which includes simultaneous data taking with independent data streams and independent triggers.The detector has 250 000 channels and is read out by front-end modules, where the data is buffered in a pipeline while awaiting the level 1 trigger decision. Zero suppression and calibration is done after the level 1 accept in custom built data collection modules (DCMs) with DSPs before the data is sent to an event builder (design throughput of 2 Gb/sec) and higher level triggers.The On-line Computing Systems Group (ONCS) has two responsibilities. Firstly, it is responsible for receiving the data from the event builder, routing it through a network of workstations to consumer processes and archiving it at a data rate of 20 MB/sec.Secondly, it is also responsible for the overall configuration, control and operation of the detector and data acquisition chain, which comprises the software integration for several thousand custom built hardware modules. The software must furthermore support the independent operation of the above mentioned granules, which includes the coordination of processes that run in 60–100 VME processors and workstations.ONCS has adapted the Shlaer—Mellor Object Oriented Methodology for the design of the top layer software. CORBA is used as communication layer between the distributed objects, which are implemented as asynchronous finite state machines.We will give an overview of the PHENIX online system with the main focus on the system architecture, software components and integration tasks of the On-line Computing group ONCS and report on the status of the current prototypes.