ICALEPCS2023 - List of Authors (Alberti, V.)

Paper	Title	Page
TUMBCMO09	Front-End Monitor and Control Web Application for Large Telescope Infrastructures: A Comparative Analysis	359
	S. Di Frischia, M. Canzari INAF - OAAB, Teramo, Italy V. Alberti INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy A. Georgiou CGI, Edinburgh, United Kingdom H.R. Ribeiro Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Ciências, Porto, Portugal
	A robust monitor and control front-end application is a crucial feature for large and scalable radio telescope infrastructures such LOFAR and SKA, whereas the control system is required to manage numerous attribute values at a high update rate, and thus the operators must rely on an affordable user-interface platform which covers the whole range of operations. In this paper two state-of-the-art web applications such Grafana and Taranta are taken into account, developing a comparative analysis between the two software suites. Such a choice is motivated mostly because of their widespread use together with the TANGO Controls Framework, and the necessity to offer a ground of comparison for large projects dealing with the development of a monitor and control GUI which interfaces to TANGO. We explain at first the general architecture of both systems, and then we create a typical use-case where an interactive dashboard is built to monitor and control a hardware device. Then, we set up some comparable metrics to evaluate the pros and cons of both platforms, regarding the technical and operational requirements, fault tolerances, developers and operators efforts, and so on. In conclusion, the comparative analysis and its results are summarized with the aim to offer the stakeholders a basis for future choices.
	Slides TUMBCMO09 [0.621 MB]
	Poster TUMBCMO09 [1.552 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO09
About •	Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 22 November 2023 — Issued ※ 27 November 2023
Cite •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

TUPDP044	Improving Performance of Taranta: Analysis of Memory Requests and Implementation of the Solution	617
	M. Canzari INAF - OAAB, Teramo, Italy V. Alberti INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy A. Dubey PSL, Pune, India M. Eguiraun, J. Forsberg, V. Hardion MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University, Lund, Sweden A. Georgiou CGI, Edinburgh, United Kingdom H.R. Ribeiro Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Ciências, Porto, Portugal
	Taranta is a software suite for generating graphical interfaces for Tango Controls software, currently adopted by MaxIV for scientific experiment usage, SKA during the current construction phase for the development of engineering interfaces for device debugging, and other institutions. A key feature of Taranta is the ability to create customizable dashboards without writing code, making it easy to create and share views among users by linking the dashboards to their own tango devices. However, due to the simplicity and capabilities of Taranta’s widgets, more and more users are creating complex dashboards, which can cause client-side resource problems. Through an analysis of dashboards, we have found that excessive memory requests are generated by a large amount of data. In this article, we report on the process we believe will help us solve this performance issue. Starting with an analysis of the existing architecture, the issues encountered, and performance tests, we identify the causes of these problems. We then study a new architecture exploiting all the potential of the Javascript framework React on which Taranta is built, before moving on to implementation of the solution.
	Poster TUPDP044 [1.549 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP044
About •	Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 18 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 16 December 2023
Cite •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

FR2BCO02	A Lean UX Approach for Developing Effective Monitoring and Control User Interfaces: A Case Study for the SKA CSP. LMC Subsystem	1650
	V. Alberti INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy C. Baffa, E. Giani, G. Marotta INAF - OA Arcetri, Firenze, Italy G. Brajnik IDS, Udine, Italy M. Colciago, I. Novak Cosylab Switzerland, Brugg, Switzerland
	The Central Signal Processor Local Monitor and Control (CSP. LMC) is a software component that allows the flow of information and commands between the Telescope Manager (TM) and the subsystems dedicated to signal processing, namely the correlator and beamformer, the pulsar search and the pulsar timing engines. It acts as an adapter by specialising the commands and associated data from the TM to the subsystems and by exposing the subsystems as a unified entity while monitoring their status. In this paper, we approach the problem of creating a User Interface (UI) for such a component. Through a series of short learning cycles, we want to explore different ways of looking at the system and build an initial set of UIs that can be refined to be used as engineering UIs in the first Array Assembly of the Square Kilometre Array. The process heavily involves some of the developers of the CSP. LMC in creating the dashboards, and other ones as participants in informal evaluations. In fact, the opportunities offered by Taranta, a tool to develop web UIs without needing web-development skills, make it possible to quickly realise a working dashboard that can be promptly tested. This also supports the short feedback cycle advocated by a Lean UX approach and maps well in a bi-weekly sprint cadence. In this paper, we will describe the method and present the results highlighting strengths and pain points where faced.
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-FR2BCO02
About •	Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 20 November 2023 — Accepted ※ 05 December 2023 — Issued ※ 13 December 2023
Cite •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

FR2BCO03	Taranta Project - Update and Current Status	1657
	Y.L. Li, M. Eguiraun, J. Forsberg, V. Hardion, M. Leorato MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University, Lund, Sweden V. Alberti INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy M. Canzari INAF - OAAB, Teramo, Italy A. Dubey PSL, Pune, India M. Gandor, D.T. Trojanowska S2Innovation, Kraków, Poland H.R. Ribeiro Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Ciências, Porto, Portugal
	Taranta, developed jointly by MAX IV Laboratory and SKA Observatory, is a web based no-code interface for remote control of instruments at accelerators and other scientific facilities. It has seen a great success in system development and scientific experiment usage. In the past two years, the panel of users has greatly expanded. The first generation of Taranta was not able to handle the challenges introduced by the user cases, notably the decreased performance when a high number of data points are requested, as well as new functionality requests. Therefore, a series of refactoring and performance improvements of Taranta are ongoing, to prepare it for handling large data transmission between Taranta and multiple sources of information, and to provide more possibilities for users to develop their own dashboards. This article presents the status of the Taranta project from the aspects of widgets updates, packages management, optimization of the communication with the backend TangoGQL, as well as the investigation on a new python library compatible with the newest python version for TangoGQL. In addition to the technical improvements, more facilities other than MAX IV and SKAO are considering to join Taranta project. One workshop has been successfully held and there will be more in the future. This article also presents the lesson learned from this project, the road map, and the GUI strategy for the near future.
	Slides FR2BCO03 [4.759 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-FR2BCO03
About •	Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 21 November 2023 — Issued ※ 23 November 2023
Cite •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

Paper

Title

Page

Front-End Monitor and Control Web Application for Large Telescope Infrastructures: A Comparative Analysis

359

S. Di Frischia, M. Canzari
INAF - OAAB, Teramo, Italy
V. Alberti
INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy
A. Georgiou
CGI, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
H.R. Ribeiro
Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Ciências, Porto, Portugal

A robust monitor and control front-end application is a crucial feature for large and scalable radio telescope infrastructures such LOFAR and SKA, whereas the control system is required to manage numerous attribute values at a high update rate, and thus the operators must rely on an affordable user-interface platform which covers the whole range of operations. In this paper two state-of-the-art web applications such Grafana and Taranta are taken into account, developing a comparative analysis between the two software suites. Such a choice is motivated mostly because of their widespread use together with the TANGO Controls Framework, and the necessity to offer a ground of comparison for large projects dealing with the development of a monitor and control GUI which interfaces to TANGO. We explain at first the general architecture of both systems, and then we create a typical use-case where an interactive dashboard is built to monitor and control a hardware device. Then, we set up some comparable metrics to evaluate the pros and cons of both platforms, regarding the technical and operational requirements, fault tolerances, developers and operators efforts, and so on. In conclusion, the comparative analysis and its results are summarized with the aim to offer the stakeholders a basis for future choices.

Slides TUMBCMO09 [0.621 MB]

Poster TUMBCMO09 [1.552 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO09

About •

Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 22 November 2023 — Issued ※ 27 November 2023

Cite •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

TUPDP044

Improving Performance of Taranta: Analysis of Memory Requests and Implementation of the Solution

617

M. Canzari
INAF - OAAB, Teramo, Italy
V. Alberti
INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy
A. Dubey
PSL, Pune, India
M. Eguiraun, J. Forsberg, V. Hardion
MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
A. Georgiou
CGI, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
H.R. Ribeiro
Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Ciências, Porto, Portugal

Taranta is a software suite for generating graphical interfaces for Tango Controls software, currently adopted by MaxIV for scientific experiment usage, SKA during the current construction phase for the development of engineering interfaces for device debugging, and other institutions. A key feature of Taranta is the ability to create customizable dashboards without writing code, making it easy to create and share views among users by linking the dashboards to their own tango devices. However, due to the simplicity and capabilities of Taranta’s widgets, more and more users are creating complex dashboards, which can cause client-side resource problems. Through an analysis of dashboards, we have found that excessive memory requests are generated by a large amount of data. In this article, we report on the process we believe will help us solve this performance issue. Starting with an analysis of the existing architecture, the issues encountered, and performance tests, we identify the causes of these problems. We then study a new architecture exploiting all the potential of the Javascript framework React on which Taranta is built, before moving on to implementation of the solution.

Poster TUPDP044 [1.549 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP044

About •

Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 18 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 16 December 2023

Cite •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

FR2BCO02

A Lean UX Approach for Developing Effective Monitoring and Control User Interfaces: A Case Study for the SKA CSP. LMC Subsystem

1650

V. Alberti
INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy
C. Baffa, E. Giani, G. Marotta
INAF - OA Arcetri, Firenze, Italy
G. Brajnik
IDS, Udine, Italy
M. Colciago, I. Novak
Cosylab Switzerland, Brugg, Switzerland

The Central Signal Processor Local Monitor and Control (CSP. LMC) is a software component that allows the flow of information and commands between the Telescope Manager (TM) and the subsystems dedicated to signal processing, namely the correlator and beamformer, the pulsar search and the pulsar timing engines. It acts as an adapter by specialising the commands and associated data from the TM to the subsystems and by exposing the subsystems as a unified entity while monitoring their status. In this paper, we approach the problem of creating a User Interface (UI) for such a component. Through a series of short learning cycles, we want to explore different ways of looking at the system and build an initial set of UIs that can be refined to be used as engineering UIs in the first Array Assembly of the Square Kilometre Array. The process heavily involves some of the developers of the CSP. LMC in creating the dashboards, and other ones as participants in informal evaluations. In fact, the opportunities offered by Taranta, a tool to develop web UIs without needing web-development skills, make it possible to quickly realise a working dashboard that can be promptly tested. This also supports the short feedback cycle advocated by a Lean UX approach and maps well in a bi-weekly sprint cadence. In this paper, we will describe the method and present the results highlighting strengths and pain points where faced.

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-FR2BCO02

About •

Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 20 November 2023 — Accepted ※ 05 December 2023 — Issued ※ 13 December 2023

Cite •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

FR2BCO03

Taranta Project - Update and Current Status

1657

Y.L. Li, M. Eguiraun, J. Forsberg, V. Hardion, M. Leorato
MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
V. Alberti
INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy
M. Canzari
INAF - OAAB, Teramo, Italy
A. Dubey
PSL, Pune, India
M. Gandor, D.T. Trojanowska
S2Innovation, Kraków, Poland
H.R. Ribeiro
Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Ciências, Porto, Portugal

Taranta, developed jointly by MAX IV Laboratory and SKA Observatory, is a web based no-code interface for remote control of instruments at accelerators and other scientific facilities. It has seen a great success in system development and scientific experiment usage. In the past two years, the panel of users has greatly expanded. The first generation of Taranta was not able to handle the challenges introduced by the user cases, notably the decreased performance when a high number of data points are requested, as well as new functionality requests. Therefore, a series of refactoring and performance improvements of Taranta are ongoing, to prepare it for handling large data transmission between Taranta and multiple sources of information, and to provide more possibilities for users to develop their own dashboards. This article presents the status of the Taranta project from the aspects of widgets updates, packages management, optimization of the communication with the backend TangoGQL, as well as the investigation on a new python library compatible with the newest python version for TangoGQL. In addition to the technical improvements, more facilities other than MAX IV and SKAO are considering to join Taranta project. One workshop has been successfully held and there will be more in the future. This article also presents the lesson learned from this project, the road map, and the GUI strategy for the near future.

Slides FR2BCO03 [4.759 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-FR2BCO03

About •

Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 21 November 2023 — Issued ※ 23 November 2023

Cite •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)