Interconnection Test Framework for the CMS Level-1 Trigger System

The Level-1 Trigger Control and Monitoring System is a software package designed to configure, monitor and test the Level-1 Trigger System of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. It is a large and distributed system that runs over 50 PCs and controls about 200 hardware units. The objective of this paper is to describe and evaluate the architecture of a distributed testing framework – the Interconnection Test Framework (ITF). This generic and highly flexible framework for creating and executing hardware tests within the Level-1 Trigger environment is meant to automate testing of the 13 major subsystems interconnected with more than 1000 links. Features include a web interface to create and execute tests, modeling using finite state machines, dependency management, automatic configuration, and loops. Furthermore, the ITF will replace the existing heterogeneous testing procedures and help reducing both maintenance and complexity of operation tasks.