Distributed Caching at Cloud Scale with Apache Ignite for the C2MON Framework

The CERN Control and Monitoring platform (C2MON) is an open-source platform for industrial controls data acquisition, monitoring, control and data publishing. Its high availability, fault tolerance and redundancy make it a perfect fit to handle the complex and critical systems present at CERN. C2MON must cope with the ever-increasing flows of data produced by the CERN technical infrastructure, such as cooling and ventilation or electrical distribution alarms, while maintaining integrity and availability. Distributed caching is a common technique to dramatically increase the availability and fault tolerance of redundant systems. For C2MON we have replaced the existing legacy Terracotta caching framework with Apache Ignite. Ignite is an enterprise grade, distributed caching platform, with advanced cloud-native capabilities. It enables C2MON to handle high volumes of data with full transaction support and makes C2MON ready to run in the cloud. This article first explains the challenges we met when integrating Apache Ignite into the C2MON framework, and then demonstrates how Ignite enhances the capabilities of a monitor and control system in an industrial controls environment.