Transcript Document

There were five basic points to be stated as a summary of the meeting
and they follow in no particular order.
DATABASE ACCESS TOOLS
the small tokamak community is developing Internet based data
acquisition and data management tools that will be tested during the
JEs. The systems presented from IST and the Kurchatov Institute have
been developed on their own and it was stated that they will be ready
to be used and tested.
COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS
the technical ideas embodied in these data tools appear very valuable
and should be compared to existing solutions that are presently used
or are in development within the large tokamak community. Given
this observation, it is clear that the two communities should get
together and discuss their technical solutions and the functionality of
their systems. It would seem to be a great waste of fusion
community’s resources to duplicate development in these areas.
Instead, if appropriate, a joint development should be very beneficial.
TESTING OF ON-GOING DEVELOPMENTS
The third point is that the small tokamak community is developing
new software-based remote participation (RP) tools for human
interaction based on Internet based videoconferencing and instant
messaging and these tools will be tested during the forthcoming JE.
Although a significant number of scientists will converge at the
physical location of the JE, an equally large number will try to
participate remotely using these tools.
NO DUPLICATION OF EFFORTS
The fourth point is that the technical ideas embodied in these RP tools are
intriguing and would benefit from comparison to existing solutions. The
existing no-fee solutions such as VRVS/EVO and Access Grid for
Internet-based video and audio, Jabber for instant messaging, and the
many commercial solutions for Internet-based videoconferencing are in
extensive use within the worldwide fusion community. As stated above,
comparison of the tools developed and tested within the small tokamak
community would help avoid the potential for duplicate development of
similar functionality.
AUTENTICATION AND SECURITY
The fifth point is that the security in the small tokamak community,
with their wide-ranging membership, is a very difficult issue that
includes concerns beyond technical. The interaction of site security
with off-site activities has the ability at times to greatly restrict RP
functionality. As such, these issues need to be dealt with early an
often so as to insure the success of the JEs.
3.3
Unified Data Access
A Unified Data Access for fusion devices means that any user
in any laboratory should only learn once how to retrieve data
related with any experiment.
In order for users to always use the same methods to interact
with data, a common layer must exist and be installed in
every laboratory.
The connection between the layer and the data storage schema,
named connector, must be developed for each association's needs and
must be able to translate the queries sent by the layer into the
database syntax.
The licensing of code and binary libraries developed inside the scientific
community should be open-source based. This guarantees that the programs
can evolve even if the original developers cease to contribute to the project.
All servers should be fully internationalised in at least English and the
association's native language.
3.4
On-line Data Processing
The adoption of a unified data interface as described in Section 3.3 by
the small tokamak community has the ability to greatly expand the
data analysis conducted during a JE.
On a grander scale, grid computing could be used to bring WAN
based computational power into the experimental data analysis
pipeline. Although the potential is large, a certain existing
infrastructure needs to be adopted as well as decisions on security
(authentication and authorization)
3.5
Visualization and Analysis Tools
The first priority concerning data analysis is to provide robust
and complete libraries that users can easily integrate in their
favourite analysis programs.
In a more advanced stage a powerful analysis tool, with the Unified
Data Access natively integrated, should be developed. Due to time
and human resources constraints, the analysis motor shouldn't be
developed from the scratch. One of the most interesting kernels is
SciLab, an open-source project with a very big community
associated, which offers “a powerful open computing environment
for engineering and scientific applications”. It already includes
hundreds of mathematical functions, with the possibility to add
interactively programs from various languages (for instance C,
Fortran,…), sophisticated data structures (including lists,
polynomials, rational functions, linear systems,...), an interpreter and
several toolboxes.
3.6
Collaborative Control Room and Remote Experiments
Collaborative Control Rooms and Remote Experiment Participation
essentially do not require entirely new techniques or developments; they
can be entirely implemented by combining in an appropriate way existing
approaches that have already been used in other contexts.
That said, it has to be underlined that little use is actually
being made of existing remote control room participation
techniques in the small tokamak community.
Technical approaches should not drastically differ between “large” and
“small” experiments; however it maybe possible, in smaller
experiments, to be less rigid in the procedural aspects with out
sacrificing security.
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Teleconferencing (audio and video)
Remote screen sharing
Some form of remote computer access
Remote data access
3.7
Security
No general solution has been implemented widely in the largeexperiment fusion community for the most important security aspect,
namely authentication and authorisation, with the exception of the
US FusionGrid and JET. Both approaches differ greatly and illustrate
the difficulties that the security aspects create.
Any authentication/authorisation solution that will be introduced in the smalldevices community should ideally be designed in such a way that it can be
adapted to become interoperable with the still-to-be-defined A/A scheme or
schemes that will be used in the ITER collaboration and as a consequence,
most likely, in the worldwide fusion community.
Another issue that may need addressing, and for example has not
been yet solved in the US FusionGrid, is that of role-based
authorization; the need to assign different authorization levels to the
same user based on changing roles.
It could be that the small-tokamak community can constitute a
suitable environment for testing such schemes.
3.8 Network issues
Several network aspects may influence remote collaboration
between the small fusion devices.
The capacity and stability of network connections at the sites varies
greatly. Some RP services require high-throughput and constantthroughput network connections. This is in particular true for Video. Audio
requires less bandwidth but can not tolerate “holes” in the connectivity.
The network structures vary greatly. Some labs have their own
networks, directly connected typically to their National
Research Network, whereas others are part of other
organisation’s networks, typically of University campus
networks. In the latter case site security requirements and
fusion-lab-specific security requirements may be in conflict. In
particular in those cases where site security is very strict this
may have a negative impact on the RP activities of the lab
Monitoring of network performance and integrity is a necessity when
real-time communication is involved. In this context we have to
consider the real-time requirements of teleconferencing and of remote
control room participation. The need for dedicated monitoring of
network connections at all fusion sites has been identified by EFDA
and several continuous monitoring sites have been established.
Network security arrangements on the various lab networks vary greatly
from practically none to multiple-layer citadel structures with each layer
separate from the next by firewalls. Such differences in approach at
different sites that are participating in RP activities have to be taken into
account; in particular the indirect weakening of high-security sites by RP
activities with low-security sites requires particular care.
The most striking observation from the discussions at the
meeting was the development within the small tokamak
community of several data management systems in isolation of
those efforts, most noticeable MDSplus, within the large
tokamak community. Although there are some aspects of
remote participation where the two communities differ in their
need it was not obvious from the meeting that the needs with
respect to data management and data acquisition are greatly
different. Therefore, it makes great sense for the respective
experts in these areas to gather together and understand the
work that they are performing and contemplating so that joint
efforts, if appropriate, can be undertaken instead of working on
separate yet similar goals.