An autonomic approach to configure HEP (High Energy Physics) experiments, applied to LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty)

Properly configuring an HEP (High Energy Phys ics) experiment becomes a more and more complex task as the number of electronics modules grows and technologies evolve quickly. Anticipating a fault in the software or in the hardware during the configuration or the data taking requires an adaptive and modular control system. The introduction of autonomic tools and data bases in the HEP world is quite recent and contributes to implement a more reliable system . The LHCb control system innovates as it has been built using autonomic tools. The main contribution of this PhD is the implementation of an autonomic 3-Tier architectur e to configure the LHCb experiment which is a huge network of devices of different types, and its integrat ion in the control system. This new type of autonomics architecture consists of: • A database layer. A relational Oracle databa se implemented using the Oracle technology contains the information required for c onfiguration, namely about configuration parameters, the connectivity of the experiment and the inventory/history of devices. A method based on prime numbers has been introduced to replace a N:M relationship. PL/SQL applications have been built to auto mate several steps in the configuration. • An object layer. A set of smart libraries has been written to allow manipulating the information stored in the database in a safe and consistent manner and without any knowledge of the database table schema. • A GUI layer. Users view and modify the co ntent of the database using user-friendly graphical interfaces. Each layer has been tested a nd validated. The behaviour of th e whole architecture and its integration in the control system ha ve also been tested successfully.