Hardware and Software Platforms

The CORBA server machine, referred to as the ``Model Server'', is a dual-processor PC running Linux Red Hat version 6.0. It contains two 600 MHz Intel Pentium III processors with 512 Kilobyte memory cache per CPU and 1 Gigabyte of RAM. The use of Linux coupled with the GNU C++ compiler (egcs) minimizes vendor dependency and increases portability of applications. A second identical server is permanently available to provide redundancy.

The principal CORBA product employed is the recursively named MICO, `MICO Is COrba'[7], a fully compliant C++ implementation of the CORBA 2.3 standard, available free of charge under the GNU public license terms. In addition to the given IDL to C++ mapping, a Tcl extension[8] provides CORBA client and server functionality to Tcl scripts through the DII and DSI interfaces, respectively. MICO does not, however, provide an IDL to Java compiler. The Java-based JavaORB CORBA package[9] is presently used to negotiate language mapping to Java, although a second Java ORB, namely JacORB[10], is also under consideration and may ultimately be preferred.

  

Figure 2: The architectural software model as used, in part, in the retrieval, analysis and distribution of controls data.

Client applications run on Linux PC consoles, typically equipped with a 450 MHz CPU and 256 Megabytes of RAM. The Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) is used for the distribution of the required software.