The ALICE DATE: the benefits of using hardware and software industry standards in a real-time environment

In 1996, the ALICE DAQ group was confronted to future demands which Abstract:were exceeding the capabilities of the system used up to then. After Abstract:some review of the market, we decided to integrate a newAbstract:data-acquisition system using several different new components.<P>Abstract:In six months, a system has been developed using new VME boards,Abstract:a new version of Unix, a new switching netowrk and new I/O interfaces. Abstract:Despite the very short deadline, the integration of this system Abstract:has been extremely effective and has been ready on time and usedAbstract:during the tests of fall '97. One of the reasons of this success Abstract:was the use of industrially supported hardware and software standards.<P>Abstract:The general architecture of the system will be described togetherAbstract:with the different input/output devices used in the system Abstract:(Fast Ethernet, PCI, FDDI, Fast Wide SCSI) and the corresponding Abstract:performances. The software environment, tools and languages (Unix, Abstract:Tcl/Tk, Java) used for this system will also be presented.