The purpose of this document is to set down the reasons and decisions regarding what is an important choice for the APS Control System design staff, namely the choice of an operating system for its principle computer resources. Since the choice also may affect cost estimates and the design handbook, there is a further need to document the process. The descriptions and explanations which follow are intended for reading by other APS technical area managers and will contain a minimum of buzz-words, and where buzz-words are used, they will be explained. The author hopes that it will help in understanding the current trends and developments in the volatile and fast-developing computer field

Knott, M.

Kraimer, M.

Lenkszus, F.

UNT Digital Library

0. S'T 1 M. Knott, M. Kraher ,  and F. Lenkszus May 1990 APS CONTROL SYSTEM OPERATING SYSTEM CHOICE Contents: Introduction What i s  t h e  operating system? APS control  system archi tec ture  - IOC, OPI ,  Network RISC / CISC What i s  UNIX? U N I X  and RISC - Future t rends Other pro jec ts  The choice Introduction : # The purpose of t h i s  document i s  t o  se t  down t h e  reasons  and d e c i s i o n s  regarding what i s  an important choice f o r  t h e  APS Control System design s t a f f ,  namely t h e  choice of an operating system for i t s  p r inc ip l e  computer reaources. Since t h e  choice a l s o  may a f f e c t  cos t  es t imates  and t h e  design handbook, there  i s  a fu r the r  need t o  document t h e  process. /' The descr ipt ions and explanations which follow are intended fdr reading by other  APS t echnica l  area managers and w i l l  contain a minimum of buzzlwords, and where buzz-words are used, they w i l l  be explained. I hope t h a t  it w i l l  help i n  understanding t h e  current  t rends  and developments i n  t h e  v o l a t i l e  and fast-developing computer f i e l d .  What is the Operating System?: The Program's V i e w :  The operat ing system can be thought of as t h e  software which l i es  between t h e  a c t u a l  computer hardware and what w e  t h i n k  of as t h e  program. There are ac tua l ly  several  addi t ional  layers between t h e  operating system and t h e  program. I n  t h e p e  l a y e r s  a re  r o u t i n e s  t o  handle  s t o r a g e  d e v i c e s  a'nd keyboards, l ibrari 'es of mathematical functions, and many others .  The Programmer' s V i e w :  To the  human i n t e r a c t i n g  with the  computer, t h e  operating system appears a s  t h e  i n t e r p r e t e r  of i n s t r u c t i o n s  t o  manipula te  f i l e s ,  e d i t  and compile programs, s e a r c h  f o r  i n fo rma t ion  w i t h i n  f i l e s  and d i r e c t o r i e s ,  invoke various system u t i l i t i e s  such as mail, and t o  set various personal features  such a s  terminal type and custom t r ans l a t ion  &f commands. 'I A DISCLAIMER Portions of this document may be illegible in electronic image products. Images are produced from the best available original document. . The U s e r ' s  V i e w :  To t h e  use r  of a w e l l - w r i t t e n  a p p l i c a t i o n  program t h e r e  i s  u s u a l l y  a minimum of i n t e r a c t i o n  with t h e  ope ra t ing  system, but  even t h a t  can be unpleasant. Operating systems can be c r y p t i c  i n  point ing out  e r ro r s ,  f o r  example. I n  sho r t ,  t h e  very a t t r i b u t e s  which make t h e  ope ra t ing  system easy and e f f i c i e n t  f o r  t h e  programmer can m a k e  it unfriendly t o  t h e  casual  user.  APS Control System Architecture:  The A P S  c o n t r o l  sys tem i s  based on a d i s t r i b u t e d  se t  of Input-Output Control lers  ( I O C s ) ,  each having a microprocessor and appropriate i n t e r f a c e  modules f o r  connection t o  t h e  equipment be ing  monitored and con t ro l l ed .  The I O C s  have process ing  c a p a b i l i t y  which i s  used t o  convert  r a w  b ina ry  da ta  t o  engineering un i t s ,  check f o r  alarm limits, and perform stand-alone c o n t r o l  l oop  and a c t i o n - r e a c t i o n  t a s k s .  The I O C s  w i l l  u s e  a h igh-  performance r e a l - t i m e  o p e r a t i n g  system, VxWorks, which p rov ides  many development fea tures  such as a run-time symbolic debugger. A t  t h e  ope ra to r  i n t e r f a c e  l e v e l ,  a high r e s o l u t i o n  graphic  works ta t ion  c a l l e d  an Operator I n t e r f a c e  (OPI) i s  provided. This i s  where so-cal led appl icat ion programs are run - programs which emulate control  panels of t h e  A P S  equipment ,  p r o v i d e  g r a p h i c  t o o l s  t o  m o n i t o r  and s t u d y  machine parameters, provide both simple and complex cont ro l  of machine equipment, l o g  and archive c o l l e c t e d  d a t a  f o r  l a t e r  ana lys i s ,  and provide l i n k s  t o  o the r  computation fac i l i t i es .  Since t h e  O P I  can be ca l l ed  upon t o  perform not  on ly  complex computat ional  t a s k s ,  bu t  a l s o  update d i s p l a y  windows, respond t o  operator  i npu t  from the,keyboard o r  mouse, and respond t o  and g e n e r a t e  network t r a f f i c ,  i t s  implementat ion should  u t i l i z e  t h e  most capable computation platform w e  can afford.  Connecting a l l  I O C s  and O P I s  together i s  a communication network which w i l l  be i n i t i a l l y  implemented with Ethernet, a 1 0  M-bit/second multiple-access ( o r  par ty- l ine)  pro tocol .  I f ,  due t o  func t iona l  or numeric expansion of t h e  network, Ethernet proves t o  have inadequate bandwidth, t h e  Fiber-optic Distr ibuted Data In te r face  ( F D D I )  with i t s  100 M-bit/second capabi l i ty  w i l l  be in s t a l l ed .  , RISC / CISC: A recent innovation i n  computer archi tecture  i s  t h e  Reduced Ins t ruc t ion  Set Computer (RISC) a r c h i t e c t u r e  ( a c t u a l l y  a re-innovation, s i n c e  t h i s  s a m e  a r ch i t ec tu re  was u t i l i z e d  i n  some ear ly  computers). The study of computer i n s t r u c t i o n s  and t h e i r  r e l a t i v e  frequency of usage has revealed t h a t  most of a computer's t i m e  i s  spent  i n  t h e  execut ion of a small  subse t  of i t s  reper to i re  of ins t ruc t ions .  R I S C  a rch i tec ture  takes  advantage of t h i s  f a c t  by s t reamlining t h e  execution of t h i s  subset and by implementing t h e  less used and more complex i n s t r u c t i o n s  with combinations of t h e  (now f a s t )  sma l l  set of i n s t r u c t i o n s .  S ince  t h e r e  is now a s m a l l  s e t  of s imple  i n s t r u c t i o n s ,  p a r a l l e l  " p i p e l i n i n g "  can be used t o  i n c r e a s e  execut ion  s p e e d .  I n  t h i s  method more t h a n  one i n s t r u c t i o n  c a n  be  e x e c u t e d  s imultaneously by s t agge r ing  i n  t i m e  t h e  va r ious  sub-operat ions.  Some processors can even average more than one in s t ruc t ion  per  clock cycle. T h e  converse t o  R I S C  a r c h i t e c t u r e  i s  Complex I n s t r u c t i o n  Se t  Computer (C.1SC) a rch i t ec tu re .  (Although it predated RISC,  t h e  CISC acronym w a s  not coined u n t i l  RISC w a s  developed.) Most computer a r c h i t e c t u r e s  developed p r i o r  t o  1980  are of t h e  t h e  C I S C  type, a t y p i c a l  example being t h e  VAX. Although it i s  poss ib le  t o  p ipe l ine  C I S C  i n s t ruc t ions ,  such a design w i l l  be very complex and expensive. The o t h e r  computer a r c h i t e c t u r e  improvements developed i n  r ecen t  years ,  such as memory caches where fu tu re  i n s t r u c t i o n s  and/or da t a  are read from memory on t h e  chance t h e y  w i l l  be needed i n  o r d e r  t o  avo id  t h e  d e l a y  associated with t h e  main memory, can be added t o  both RISC and CISC but t h e  e n t i r e  cache process i s  always more complex and expensive with CISC. 8 The reason f o r  i nc lud ing  a d i scuss ion  of RISC v s  CISC is because it i s  a p p a r e n t  t h a t  f o r  any g i v e n  semiconductor  imp lemen ta t ion ,  t h e  RISC a rch i t ec tu re  w i l l  always be ab le  t o  out-perfom CISC. Even today the re  i s  a five-to-one advantage i n  r a w  MIPS (mil l ions of i n s t r u c t i o n s  per  second) f o r  RISC devices .  This  should be d iscounted  t o  some degree s i n c e  RISC r e q u i r e s  more i n s t r u c t i o n s  t o  perform some t y p e s  of ope ra t ions ,  but  an  advantage of even two-to-one i s  obtainable on reasonable benchmarks. What is UNIX?: U N I X  w a s  developed f o r  AT&T by t h e i r  development arm, B e l l  Labs. It w a s  developed as a word processing too l ,  but soon expanded t o  support software development and f i n a l l y  grew i n t o  a fu l l - fea tured  operat ing system. Most opera t ing  systems are w r i t t e n  i n  some compiler language, f o r  example t h e  VMS ope ra t ing  system used by t h e  VAX i s  w r i t t e n  i n  BLISS, a p r o p r i e t a r y  l a n g u a g e  d e s i g n e d  t o  t a k e  a d v a n t a g e  o f  a l l  f e a t u r e s  o f  t h e  VAX a r c h i t e c t u r e .  VMS i t s e l f  i s  pxopr ie ta ry  of course,  and VMS and t h e  VAX w e r e  des igned  a t  t h e  s a m e  t i m e  and are i n t i m a t e l y  related.  U N I X  w a s  w r i t t e n  i n  t h e  "C" language, a l s o  developed a t  B e l l  Labs. Since AT&T was a t  t h a t  t i m e  p a r t  of a regulated monopoly, it w a s  prevented f r o m  marketing U N I X  o r  C, and both moved e f f ec t ive ly  i n t o  t h e  publ ic  domain. C has s ince  become a standardized language l i k e  FORTRAN, and is offered  f o r  nearly a l l  computers a s  a well-developed and very popular language. UNIX was wr i t ten  by programmers f o r  use by programmers and as such, it has many p e c u l i a r  aspects, not t h e  least  of which i s  i t s  set  of c ryp t i c  commands. The keys t o  U N I X ' s  success  however, are t h a t  it i s  ex tens ib le ,  i s  i n  t h e  public domain ( i n  t h a t  several  vendors market compatible, l icensed copies),  and i s  w r i t t e n  i n  a popular  "publ ic"  language. These f a c t s  combine t o  allow anyone the  a b i l i t y  t o  make enhancements, remove features ,  and t a i l o r  i t  t o  s p e c i f i c  needs. A t  f i r s t  it w a s  a c u r i o s i t y  i n  t h e  computer science departments of universities, but it soon became appaxent that if an application program or utility program could run on one computer under the UNIX operating system, it could run on any computer under UNIX. One indication of this universality is the fact that the UNIX operating system is available for microprocessors as well as supercomputers. Thus, if a startup company chose UNIX as its operating system and made the minor changes necessary to support its chosen computer architecture, any existing software that ran under UNIX could run on their computer. In this way, a major breakthrough was made, similax to that prompted by the IBM-PC and MS- DOS, in that a new computer could be introduced with a complement of software already available. When the statement is made that a program can "run under UNIX," this means that it makes no special demands on a particular operating system or hardware, and if simply recompiled with the UNIX-based computer's compiler, it will perform exactly as expected. All interactions with the operator will be unchanged. Sometimes changes in the file structure or communication system will have to be adjusted, but these are examples of the dependencies referred to above. UNIX and RISC - Future trends: Because of the two developments described above, namely RISC and UNIX, nearly all companies in the computer business are developing and marketing RISC-based computers and workstations which run under the UNIX operating operating system. Competition is forcing higher performance while keeping prices low and this trend is likely to continue. There will always be a market for CISC architecture computers and operating systems such as VAX/VMS, but a principle reason is the installed base of application software and the steady improvements made to the hardware by companies like DEC and IBM. In fact, as computer performance increases, vendors can afford more user-friendly interfaces and it will matter little whether the underlying operating system is UNIX or some other since the user will not have to deal with it. Since UNIX is extensible and easily modified and improved, vendors have used this fact to help their market position and provide their own "Enhanced UNIX." This prevents true transparency between vendors' products. Various standards efforts are trying to address this and vendors will follow standards as they are developed or risk being left behind their competition. The U.S. federal government is moving in the direction of requiring UNIX for computer acquisitions in many departments. While this will not likely affect us directly, it will definitely pressure the computer market in this direction. Other Projects : It is sometimes useful to monitor the choices made by other accelerator- related projects and I will list a few. ESRF has chosen the HP line of computers running under UNIX. CEBAF has made the same two choices. Nearly all new activities at CERN employ the UNIX operating system, although this can be tempered by the fact that UNIX has enjoyed a greater and longer popularity in European laboratories. CERN has even established a policy of requiring UNIX in all future applications. ALS is developing a control and monitoring system based on an in-house architecture and may not employ an operating system as such. However, this choice is considered by many as an aberration. They will be including workstations as upper-level consoles and although some will be IBM PCs (or equivalent), others will no doubt be of higher capability and will likely be RISC/UNIX based. The Choice: It wQuld seem to be obvfous on the face of it to choose UNIX as the operating system for any system to be delivered in the mid 1990s. There are, however, some mitigating factors. Most important is that UNIX has several defic'iencies related to real-time processing such as guaranteed priorities, preemptive kernel, etc. Some vendors address this problem by providing "real-time extensions." HP is one such vendor. Standardization efforts such as POSIX are addressing this area and other vendors will add such features. It should be noted that the operating system to be used at the microprocessor,'or IOC level, is to be a high performance real-time system known as W o r k s  and will not be subject to this problem. UNIX will be used only on the host computer and console workstations. The VXWorks software is developed under UNIX (using SUN computers in our case), but this does not in itself demand that UNIX be the operating system for the remainder of the control system. Another edge to the UNIX sword is the possibility that with many vendors marketing RISC/UNIX products in this very competitive field, the vendor chosen solely for price/performance reasons may be driven out of the market in the future. So the choice comes down to getting the best price/performance ratio, the highest performance for the available funds (you never have enough performance), and being careful to choose a firm with stayinq power. For the reasons documented above, we feel that UNIX would be a prudent choice for the operating system of the host and console workstations. The possibility of mixing products from two or more vendors who subscribe to the same standards will not only enable us to take advantage of market competition and obtain the highest performance/cost ratio, but also make us somewhat imune to the failure of the initial supplier of equipment. When coupled with RISC architecture processors, a future of steadily increasing performance availability at reasonable cost is assured. The following items summarize the  reasons f o r  choosing U N I X :  * * * * I n t e r o p e r a b i l i t y  of  v a r i o u s  so f tware  and hardware components from severa l  vendors. This w i l l  provide t h e  opt ion of using equipment from s e v e r a l  vendors  and p rov ide  a measure of  p r o t e c t i o n  from b u s i n e s s  f a i l u r e s  . A v a i l a b i l i t y  of sof tware developed a t  o t h e r  a c c e l e r a t o r  l a b o r a t o r i e s  which have adopted UNIX (a growing l i s t ) .  Higher system performance (both  i n i t i a l  and f u t u r e )  employing RISC archi tec ture .  Ind i rec t  bene f i t s  gained by adopting an operat ing system which i s  under t h e  influence of standardization e f f o r t s .  It should be added t h a t  t h e  adoption of U N I X  does NOT mean t h a t  everyone must $earn t o  dea l  with UNIX.  Only those who develop software f o r  use with t h e  cont ro l  system w i l l  have t o  be concerned with t h i s  development and i n  those  cases they  may welcome what i s  reputed  t o  be a s u p e r i o r  sof tware  development environment. A s  f o r  VMS systems and experience, w e  in tend  t o  provide a convenient means f o r  VMS (and o t h e r )  computers t o  communicate with the  control  system and t o  have access to a l l  accelerator data.  W e  w i l l  now proceed t o  eva lua te  workstat ions and computer s e r v e r s  which provide U N I X  a s  a t  l e a s t  one opera t ing  system choice.  RISC a r c h i t e c t u r e  w i l l  no doubt be a fea ture  of t h e  leading candidates. DECLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsi- bility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Refer- ence herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recorn- ' mendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those- of the United Sfates' Govemment or any agency'thereof. 

APS control system operating system choice

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APS control system operating system choice

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