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Software Development Metrics & Information Summary for C2 2008

16 February 2008 through 30 March 2008

The Plan of Record used for this cycle can be found at PlanOfRecordC22008.

Overview

13 SDD members worked ~3256 hours in C2 2008 over 30 days (4% division administration and planning, 72% cycle commitments, 3% GBT operations and user support, 6% overhead, and 15% excused absences).

overvieweffortC22008.jpg

Project Allocation

The cycle commitments were allocated over 8 major projects: Dynamic Scheduling, PTCS, Mustang, Cicada/GUPPI, K-band Focal Plane Array, Calibration, RFI, and Software Continuing Maintenance and Enhancements. We also worked on 1 other projects this cycle to which resources were not allocated at the beginning of the cycle - RRI. In the chart below, "other" is used as a catch-all for those cycle commitments or activities which are not associated with a major project.

projecteffortC22008.jpg

The projects are further broken down into the individual commitments in the next section.

Cycle Commitments

The cycle commitments for C2 consisted of 49 commitments. A summary of each major commitment is discussed later in its own section. Of the 49 commitments, 48 were met satisfactorily (of these 28 were part of larger efforts which will continue into future cycles). 7 of the commitments received little or no effort because they were given a lower priority than other commitments. 1 commitment was not met satisfactorily, but is expected to be completed next cycle; this is the Statistical Analysis Reports for Dynamic Scheduling.

5 commitments were eliminated for a variety of reasons. The Data File Stream Upgrade for Mustang was eliminated because it is lowest priority and cannot get adequate resources. The 3 activities for the RFI Known Sources Database project will be eliminated from the next Plan of Record due to a resignation; the items will return as soon as we can assign a software engineer to the project. The Evaluate GBT Data Handling & Future Options activity has now been consolidated with the Conceptual Software Design for Data Handling of KFPA work.

commitmentsoverviewC22008.jpg

Operational and User Support

The items listed below pertain to time spent supporting GBT operation. These tasks usually involve helping users, fixing/troubleshooting system problems, and fixing/troubleshooting lab test environment problems. Note: Effort estimates reflect total time elapsed, i.e. how long did it take to fix the problem start to finish - not the sum total of each person's time.

Items:

Key:

Commitment Highlights by Project

Dynamic Scheduling

Information on the Dynamic Scheduling project can be found at the Dynamic Scheduling Project Page and Dynamic Scheduling Web Home. The effect of weather conditions, both wind and opacity, on high frequency astronomy is well known. Currently, the GBT is using a fairly basic dynamic scheduling system which neither allow for rapid changes in the weather nor for long spells of good or bad weather. To maximize our use of good weather, we need to implement a true dynamic scheduling system on the telescope. The design and implementation of such a system is the goal of this project. This cycle, the Dynamic Scheduling Project team spent most of their time developing project planning materials for the upcoming proof of concept tests. Last cycle, we worked toward adding the simulation and scheduling of windowed and fixed sessions. This cycle we have worked toward adding more information fields to the database, importing the existing GBT observing backlog into the database, implementing a preliminary device availability mechanism, and resolving discrepancies in scheduling statistics between the current code base and Dana Balser's prototype code. We have been working closely with the NRAO e2e group, who are contributing 0.25 FTE software development effort.

The project was allocated ~616 person-hours of effort, and expended ~587.

PTCS

Mustang

Mustang is currently controlled and read out using NASA's freely available, Java-based Instrument Remote Control (IRC) system. This system has served admirably during early testing and commissioning of the instrument, but for long-term operations we would like to replace it with software written in-house. The primary reason for this is that, generally, IRC duplicates the functionality of the Ygor monitor and control system. The maintenance and upkeep of this separate monitor and control system entails significant work, which we can greatly reduce with an up-front effort to port the specific DAQ and control capabilities to our M&C system. Visit the Mustang Wiki for more project-specific information.

There were at least 15 separate activities associated with the Mustang effort. These include the Mustang Meta-MR, PCI Initialization, Mustang Crate Control, Mustang Tower Control, Mustang FITS Writer, Parser, High Level Parameters, Manager Startup, Data Monitoring, Collect Detector Bias Curves, Spider Tests, Messaging Modifications, Calibration Diode Control, and also general support. The Data File Stream Upgrade for Mustang was eliminated because it is lowest priority and cannot get adequate resources.

Work continued this cycle was primarily focus on completing an Ygor Manager for Mustang. This cycle we successfully ran the Mustang hardware with the Ygor Manager for observing. Additional work will continue into next cycle and beyond to put the finishing touches on the software.

We allocated ~434 person-hours of effort this cycle and expended ~410.

KFPA: Data Pipeline (& General GBT Data Analysis Planning)/M&C

The goal of the generic GBT data analysis planning activity is to evaluate the current effectiveness of the GBT data reduction package, GBTIDL, identify its current deficiencies, and to plan for the future of GBT data reduction. We expect this effort to continue into the coming cycles and evolve into an effort to implement the recommendations which sprout from the analysis. However for the next fiscal year, our efforts will focus on the data reduction pipeline software for the K-band Focal Plane Array specifically. We plan to use this effort as a case in point for future pipeline and data reduction planning because much of the KFPA pipeline is generalizable to other GBT receivers and backends as well.

This we presented the KFPA data pipeline design and KFPA M&C software design at the Conceptual Design Review. Additionally, we have been working to create a GBT SDFITS to ACSIS (JCMT format) conversion in order to leverage third party data visualization software in the Starlink library (especially GAIA).

We allocated ~171 person-hours of effort for this task and expended ~150. The 21-hour discrepancy arose from the fact that the design documents were fairly mature before the Conceptual Design Review and preparations were quicker than expected.

RFI: Known Sources Database

This application is designed to create an application that will serve as the administrative interface to the RfiDataBase. When RFI is reported at Green Bank, the RFI group gathers frequency and other signal characteristics and then consults allocation tables, FCC databases, the NRQZ database, and possibly also monitors and DFs (direction finds) the interference in order to identify it. If identification is successful, we may approach the responsible party for either legally required compliance or voluntary cooperation. After that, all we have learned from this considerable effort is filed in one of several disconnected and loosely organized formats (email records, NRQZ database, spreadsheets living on individual PC's, etc.) where it is not readily accessible nor easily searchable. Deliverables from this software effort would provide us with a central, searchable repository for this knowledge. The 3 activities for the RFI Known Sources Database project will be eliminated from the next Plan of Record due to a resignation; the items will return as soon as we can assign a software engineer to the project. In the meantime, Carla Beaudet (the project manager) plans to try to make progress herself.

We allocated ~115 person-hours of effort for this task and expended only ~63.

GUPPI

The Green Bank Ultimate Pulsar Processing Instrument (GUPPI) is the next-generation pulsar processor for the GBT and is built on the CASPER platform. GUPPI development aims for first-light in the early months of 2008 and requires at least an expert-user interface to provide simple controls and access to its parameters. The short-term goal is to provide a lightweight interface to be used during the engineering and commissioning phase, with support for later integration with the Configuration Tool and Astrid. This lightweight interface is to be used to prototype what the user would see in the Astrid backend tab for GUPPI. The Very-Expert-User Interface and Control Framework for GUPPI (i.e., GUPPI Controller) aims to support GUPPI's first light requirements and provide a simplified user interface with full-access to all GUPPI parameters in a framework which is portable -- for potential use at other institutions -- and is modular -- to support various client-server communication models upstream. This development is being done in coordination with the NRAO e2e group, who are graciously lending 0.25 FTE. This cycle, we hired a 1-year term software engineer for Green Bank to help with GUPPI software development.

There were 4 separate activities associated with the GUPPI effort: Conceptual Design and Very-Expert-User Interface, IBOB and BEE2 Interfaces, GPU R&D, and general support.

We allocated ~282 person-hours of effort for this task and expended ~255. The 22 person-hour discrepancy is mostly due to JoeBrandt's time going toward higher priority PTCS items.

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