THE LABVIEW RADE FRAMEWORK DISTRIBUTED ARCHITECTURE

For accelerator GUI applications there is a need for a rapid development environment to create expert tools or to prototype operator applications. Typically a variety of tools are being used, such as Matlab or Excel, but their scope is limited, either because of their low flexibility or limited integration into the accelerator infrastructure. In addition, having several tools obliges users to deal with different programming techniques and data structures. We have addressed these limitations by using LabVIEW, extending it with interfaces to C++ and Java. In this way it fulfils requirements of ease of use, flexibility and connectivity, which makes up what we refer to as the RADE framework. Recent application requirements could only be met by implementing a distributed architecture with multiple servers running multiple services. This brought us the additional advantage to implement redundant services, to increase the availability and to make transparent updates. We will present two applications requiring high availability. We also report on issues encountered with such a distributed architecture and how we have addressed them. The latest extension of the framework is to industrial equipment, with program templates and drivers for PLCs Siemens and Schneider) and PXI with LabVIEW-Real Time.