Minutes of MW meetings Mo, 8 Jan and We, 17 Jan.


Present:  Kris (minutes), Marc, Nikolai, Steen, Vito, Francesco (8, Jan)

                Kris, Marc, Steen, Vito, Francesco (17 Jan)


Here is the resumee of the last two Middleware meetings: Jan. 8 and Jan. 17

 

1. Short-term and middle-term planning for 2001.

Kris presented three slides with the planning for the begin of the year and the outlook for the first half of 2001:

 

Begin of the year (mid February)

Install first version of CMW

JAR files

LynxOS libraries

SonicMQ on selected machines

Deliver User Guide and Reference Manual

To be finished

Java client

Public Device API

Directory Service

Topic API?

LynxOS server

RDA ?

GM ?

SL Equip GW

SonicMQ ?

First half of 2001

Finish OPC server

RDA with ORBacus

C++ client API

RDA client in C++

Logging and tracing

Remaining requirements

Security

 

The planning for the beginning of the year was accepted. As for the mid-term planning the following items were suggested in addition:

Java server framework

Grouping of requests

RAD (Rapid Development) infrastructure and API

Steen mentioned that in PS additional database definition work is required for the GM Device Adapter.

Vito raised the question of co-existence of the RDA with other CORBA implementations such as Visibroker currently used by the CESAR project within an EJB product. It might be that RDA has to ported to use Visibroker.

 

2. Development issues

Kris raised the question of using Data IDL files in different CMW parts (RDA, Database etc.). Nikolai proposed to keep Data in the RDA package in the first version but promote it to a separate package later.

Vito has implemented a file-based device directory. Kris will include it in the general DeviceDirectory class. He has also re-worked the names in public client API, added timestamps and cycle selector. Vito reports that Java 1.1 works on LynxOS 3.1 (PC version). PowerPC version is expected soon.

We have problems to coordinate development between PS and SL. This has been evident in the server framework development between Steen and Jens. Kris will organize a presentation of Razor which can help to solve such problems.

RDA C++ development. The development has been completed for LynxOS 3.0.1. Begin January Nikolai had problems with the development environment for LynxOS 3.1. He is nevertheless optimistic about providing a version for 3.1 for PS start-up in February.

Nikolai has added a virtual function "shutdown" (in the server framework)???? which shall be implemented by (???).

In a recent meeting between Nikolai, Kris and Jens the question of packaging and namespaces has been raised. A following structure has been proposed:

cmw as the top package (no ch.cern ?)

cmw.corba for all the CORBA-related stuff i.e. CORBA initialization, binding etc convenience static functions

cmw.corba.data

cmw.corba.rda

cmw.corba.dba

etc. for the stuff which is generated from IDL

cmw.rda

cmw.data

cmw.dba (database)

cmw.dir (directory)

cmw.topic (topic API)

etc. for the main packages

We have to standardize on DataEntry tags such as value, timeStamp, cycleStamp etc.

3. Deployment and maintenance issues

Nikolai has proposed to put CMW configuration files on a WWW server which will make configuration maintenance easier. Kris will look after this.

The CORBA Naming Service shall be installed on a operational machine. Kris will follow this up.

Install SonicMQ on an operational machine in SL and PS. Francesco will follow this up.

 

4. Software User Manual (SUM)

A template has been produced by Marc, chapters were allocated to project members and this skeleton has been distributed by Kris. We have a lot of work to fill it out. Kris will keep a master copy of the document.