EPICS v4 Working Group Home Page

Last modified: Mon Jun 3 11:22:15 PDT 2013

EPICS V4

Working Group

This is the group home page of the EPICS v4 Working Group. The EPICS v4 working group is a collaborative effort of members invited by Brookhaven Lab, to bring EPICS v4 to its full potential.

The adminstrative process, and formal workflow of the working group are defined in the EPICS Version 4 Process document. BNL and PSI support is subject to the EPICS v4 Charter, which defines scope and deliverables.

EPICS v4 is a set of computer communications protocols, and a software framework, for high performance distributed control, message passing, and high level software services, as may be used in large scientific instruments and industrial plants. EPICS v4 was previously called "PvData", hence the name of the sourceforge project.

Working Group Activities

Present Work

Please see the list of present activities.

Archive of previous activities.

Meetings

Sep 2011: 7-Sep-2011: Agenda, Minutes; 14-Sep-2011: Agenda, Chat, Minutes (PDF); 22-Sep-2011: Agenda, Minutes, Material: GatherOverview.doc; 28-Sep-2011: Agenda, Chat, Minutes (PDF).
Oct 2011: October 2011 Workshop 3-4 Oct-2011 PSI: Day 1 Topics: Greg's Report on impressions of EPICS V4 development, and Marty's hot topic list, Agenda and Minutes; Day 2: Agenda and Minutes, Outcome: Draft of Normative Types; 19-Oct-2011: Agenda, Minutes; 26-Oct-2011: Agenda, Minutes.
Nov 2011: 2-Nov-2011: Agenda, Minutes; 9-Nov-2011: Agenda, Minutes; 23-Nov-2011: Agenda, Minutes; 30-Nov-2011: Agenda, Minutes.
Dec 2011: 7-Dec-2011: Agenda, Minutes; 14-Dec-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 21-Dec-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Jan 2012: 4-Jan-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 11-Jan-2012: Agenda, Minutes; January 2012 Workshop 23-25 Jan-2012 BNL: Agenda; Day 1: Minutes; Day 2: Minutes; Day 3: Minutes.
Feb 2012: 8-Feb-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 15-Feb-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 22-Feb-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 29-Feb-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Mar 2012: 14-Mar-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 21-Mar-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 28-Mar-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Apr 2012: 4-Apr-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 11-Apr-2012: Agenda, Minutes; April 2012 Workshop 23-24 Apr-2012 SLAC: Agenda, Day 1: Minutes; Day 2: Minutes.
May 2012: 9-May-2012: Agenda and Minutes; 16-May-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 23-May-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Jun 2012: 6-Jun-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 13-Jun-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 20-Jun-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 27-Jun-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Jul 2012: July 2012 Workshop 11-13 Jul-2012 Diamond: Agenda; Day 1: Minutes; Day 2: Minutes; Day 3: Minutes; 25-Jul-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Aug 2012: 22-Aug-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 29-Aug-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Sep 2012: 5-Sep-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 12-Sep-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 19-Sep-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 26-Sep-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Oct 2012: 3-Oct-2012: Agenda, Minutes; October 2012 Workshop 17-19 Oct-2012 BNL: Day 1: Minutes; Day 2: Minutes; Day 3: Minutes; 31-Oct-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Nov 2012: 7-Nov-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 14-Nov-2012: Minutes.
Dec 2012: 5-Dec-2012: Agenda, Minutes; 18-Dec-2012: Agenda, Minutes.
Jan 2013: 9-Jan-2013: Agenda, Minutes; January 2013 Workshop 21-23 Jan-2013 PSI: Agenda; Day 1: Minutes; Day 2: Minutes; Day 3: Minutes.
Feb 2013: 13-Feb-2013: Agenda, Minutes; 20-Feb-2013: Agenda, Minutes; 27-Feb-2013: Agenda, Minutes.
Mar 2013: 6-Mar-2013: Agenda, Minutes; 20-Mar-2013: No Agenda, Minutes; 27-Mar-2013: No Agenda, Minutes.
Apr 2013: 10-Apr-2013: Agenda, Minutes; 17-Apr-2013: Agenda, Minutes; April 2013 Workshop 27-28 Apr-2013 Diamond: Agenda; Day 1: No Minutes; Discussion concentrated on combining the software data type for NDArray with that for images. Day 2: Minutes.
May 2013: 15-May-2013: Agenda, Minutes; 30-May-2013: Agenda, Minutes;

Meeting Information

Weekly Telecon:

Time: During observance of summer time: UTC (GMT) Tuesdays at 15:30; Outside observance of summer time: UTC (GMT) Tuesdays at 16:30. This puts the meeting at the following local times (24-hr clock):

San Francisco (U.S.A. - California) Tuesdays, 08:30:00 local time
Chicago (U.S.A. - Illinois) Tuesdays, 10:30:00 local time
New York (U.S.A. - New York) Tuesdays, 11:30:00 local time
Oxford (United Kingdom - England) Tuesdays, 16:30:00 local time
Zürich (Switzerland) Tuesdays, 17:30:00 local time
Berlin (Germany) Tuesdays, 17:30:00 local time
Ljubljana (Slovenia) Tuesdays 17:30:00 local time

Since the US and Europe switch observance at different times, there is a funky week each November and March where things get outa whack.

Meetings are held in Google+, using a "hangout" initiated by a chair. We use the Google+ "EPICS V4" page.

You will need:

A Google+ id, which has been added to the "circle" of EPICS V4.
A headset with microphone
A webcam if you like to send video

Minutes are recorded as a shared document of the "EPICS 4" Google+ user. One such document is created by the chair for each meeting.

Workshops:

The working group holds a face-to-face meeting approximately every 3 months. Next workshop meeting: Diamond, UK, as a satellite meeting of the EPICS conference: 29 & 30 April, 2013. Contact: David Hickin at Diamond.

Meeting Minutes Standard

We record the minutes of the weekly telecon as a reference for people assigned action items, so they know the context of the required work, and for people outside the Working Group to see the bogus logic we used to reach conclusions.

Minutes should include every (relevant) thought expressed in the meeting. The scribe should be madly trying to keep up during the whole meeting. It is reasonable to ask for a pause for catchup. The objective is to indicate why we reached a conclusion, as well as what it was
Scribe is absolutely justified in asking for clarification at any time
Top of the minutes MUST include list of attendees, prefixed "PRESENT:", and the minute taker's id, prefixed "SCRIBE:", so that an automatic minute processor can remove the prefix of the minute taker from the published minutes. The chair will do a roll-call and do the PRESENT and SCRIBE entries
When the subject of the meeting changes, mark with the words "NEW TOPIC:"
Action Items MUST be prefixed "AI...:" or "ACTION:", and should include a person on which the action is assigned, and a due date. The form should be like "AI on Greg by 1/12: ..."
Specific decisions of the meeting MUST be prefixed "RESOLUTION:". The resolution must be fully described in the minutes, during the meeting. If the scribe isn't clear on the resolution, ask for clarification
Problematic areas of EPICS V4 should be prefixed "ISSUE:", and be described as completely as possible in the minutes, during the meeting.

Membership

The EPICS v4 Working group presently has the following members:

Name	Organisation	Status	Interests	Charter Deliverables	Scribe date
Gabriele Carcassi	BNL	Observer	General purpose services, client tools and their interoperability, such as PvManager, BOY, ChannelFinder, and data types	Directory Service specification, Directory Service implementation and pvlist tool, Interoperable Data Types specification, pvManager	7/Sep/2011
Benjamin Franksen	HZB	Observer
Bob Dalesio	BNL	Participant, co-chair	Core architecture for control, administration	Money	14/Sep/2011, 22/Sep/2011, 7/Dec/2011, 20/Jun/2012, 25/Jul/2012, 7/Nov/2012
Michael Davidsaver	BNL	Participant	EPICS core integration and high performance data flow
David Hickin	Diamond	Participant	Beamline applications, V3/V4 interoperability and pvData	Archive service	15/Feb/2012, 4/Apr/2012, 23/Aug/2012, 19/Sep/2012
Andrew Johnson	APS	Participant	EPICS administration and integration		13/Feb/2013, 15/May/2013
Timo Korhonen	PSI	Participant	Services for physics.		26/Oct/2011, 9/Nov/2011, 29/Feb/2012, 26/Sep/2012
Marty Kraimer	BNL	Participant	Core architecture, protocol standards and Java implementations of standards.	pvData Specification, IOC Pipeline Specification, pvAccess Implementations, pvData Implementations, pvIOC Implementations, EPICS v3 to EPICS v4 Interoperability report, Controls Application Developers Guide, Protocol Developers Guide	11/Apr/2012, 23/May/2012, 29/Aug/2012
Ralph Lange	HZB	Participant	Infrastructure and Directory Service	Directory Service specification, Directory Service implementation and pvlist tool	30/Nov/2011, 4/Jan/2012, 8/Feb/2012
Nikolay Malitsky	BNL	Participant	Archiver, IOC, physics	pvIOC Implementations	21/Dec/2011, 14/Mar/2012, 6/Jun/2012
Anton Mezger	PSI	Observer	Operational tools and controls displays, physics		9/May/2012
Matej Sekornaja	Cosylab	Participant	Core architecture, protocol standards and C/C++ implementations of standards.	pvAccess Specification, pvAccess implementations, pvData implementations, pvIOC implementations	27/Feb/13, 17/Apr/13
Guobao Shen	BNL	Participant	Services for physics.	Performance Report	14/Dec/2011, 11/Jan/2012, 16/May/2012, 13/Jun/2012
Kunal Shroff	BNL	Observer	General purpose services, client tools and their interoperability, such as PvManager, ChannelFinder, data types.
Sinisa Veseli	APS	Observer			10/Apr/13
Greg White	PSI, SLAC	Participant, co-chair	Core architecture for services, Services architecture, model service	Interoperable Data Types specification, Services API Specification, Getting Started documentation	2/Nov/11, 21/Mar/12, 28/Mar/12, 11/Apr/12, 12/Sep/12, 3/Oct/12, 31/Oct/12, 6/Mar/13
Dirk Zimoch	PSI	Observer	vxWorks port

Technical Admin

The following items are related to the administration of the WG resources from a technical perspective.

Greg White, SLAC/PSI greg at slac.stanford.edu, for EPICS V4 Working Group