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Software Development Metrics & Information Summary for C6 2007

16 August 2007 through 30 September 2007

The Plan of Record used for this cycle can be found at PlanOfRecordC62007.

Overview

9 SDD members worked ~2421 hours in C5 2007 over 31 days (5% division administration and planning, 73% cycle commitments, 1% preventive maintenance, 2% GBT operations and user support, 8% overhead, and 11% excused absences). Operational and User Support was minimal this cycle (2%) partially due to the GBT azimuth track shutdown and commissioning activities.

overvieweffortC62007.jpg

Project Allocation

The cycle commitments were allocated over 10 major projects: Dynamic Scheduling, PTCS, Business Office System, Software Continuing Maintenance and Enhancements (CM&E), e2e, Cicada, Zpectrometer/Ka Receiver, Mustang, K-band Focal Plane Array, and RFI. In the chart below, "other" is used as a catch-all for those cycle commitments which are not associated with a major project.

projecteffortC62007.jpg

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

Cycle Commitments

The cycle commitments for C6 consisted of 44 commitments. A summary of each major commitment is discussed later in its own section. Of the 44 commitments, 41 were met satisfactorily (of these 29 were part of larger efforts which will continue into future cycles). 3 were not completed as expected and continued over into the next cycle. The following commitments were not completed as expected: Indicate Subreflector Position in Data (Ka/Zpectrometer), Implement GBTIDL Reduction Procedure for Subreflector Nodding (Ka/Zpectrometer), and Merge Zpectrometer SDFITS Code Branch into Main Trunk (Ka/Zpectrometer). The first and last commitment will be completed soon after Cycle 7 begins. The second commitment will be completed later in Cycle 7 by RonMaddalena.

commitmentsoverviewC62007.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. Operational and User Support was minimal this cycle due to the GBT azimuth track shutdown.

Items:

Key:

Commitment Highlights

Dynamic Scheduling: Evolve Dynamic Scheduling Proposal

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. Starting Cycle 7, the software effort will focus on developing a minimal dynamic scheduling system - front to back. Features will then be added to this skeleton system from a prioritized list, with feedback from our project scientist gathered after each feature's implementation.

This task was allocated ~103 person-hours of effort, but expended only ~87. This cycle the effort remained slowed down due to the Ka-band receiver and Mustang preparations for high frequency season. This task will be continued into next cycle and throughout FY08.

BOS: Business Office System

The creation of an NRAO-wide reservation system, the BusinessOfficeSystem, is aimed at consolidating the disparate systems used in Green Bank and Socorro for visitor accommodations and support.

This cycle, we deployed the final system on October 1, 2007. Some effort on this will continue into next cycle; much of what remains involves some bug fixes and project closeout activities.

We allocated ~202 person-hours of effort for this task and expended ~232. Much of the overrun was due to an unexpected database merge with the Proposal Submission Tool to "autocreate" BOS accounts.

PTCS: Implement PFM5 revised Pointing/Focus Model

We allocated ~27 of person-hours for this effort and expended ~22 person-hours to complete this item this cycle.

PTCS: Port Holography Manager to Linux

The holography backend was originally deployed years ago on a VxWorks system with an MCB interface. The system was limited to 200 ms dumps due to the combination of the VxWorks OS and the MCB interface. We need the backend to dump much faster in order to properly map the GBT's panels. A new host platform and operating system is required (Linux), and a new interface to the data stream and the command stream will be created. No new manager parameters or sampler values will be needed, that is, the external interface to the M&C system will remain unchanged, except for the volume of data recorded, and the legal command values for integration time.

We allocated ~227 of person-hours for this effort and expended ~182 person-hours to complete this item this cycle.

PTCS: SCCU Servo Changes

The SCCU is the name given to the common software which runs on both the CCU (az/el) and SCU (feedarm) servo systems. This activity is being done to allow better slow-speed tracking, and potentially better trajectory following. This activity is also intended to add the hooks to the system to allow the use of acceleration feed-forward, to allow the servo to follow a non-constant acceleration.

We allocated ~82 person-hours for this effort and expended ~71 person-hours this cycle. We expect this item to be completed early next cycle.

CM&E: Data Analysis Planning

The goal of this 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. We allocated ~76 person-hours of effort for this task and expended 0. This item did not receive any actual resources as the Ka/Zpectrometer project work took precedence. This item will be refocused specifically toward planning for K-band Focal Plane Array data analysis and pipelining next cycle.

RFI: Known Sources IDL Application

This application is designed to create a visual display of the known RFI sources in the RFI database. Specific features include displaying the sources graphed along a frequency axis as bars, the width of which designate the occupied bandwidth; each source is color coded based on its mitigation status; entry boxes allow the user to specify a frequency at which to display any known sources of RFI.

We are providing a low level of support for this effort and utilized an REU student for the project. We expended ~2 person-hours of effort to complete this task this cycle. The deliverable is a prototype system which can be evolved by our scientific support staff.

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.

Work continued this cycle on creating an Ygor Manager for the Mustang receiver. We allocated ~548 person-hours of effort this cycle and only used ~457. Of the 91 person-hour discrepancy, 66% went into general work-related overhead, ~29% went into continuing education activities (e.g. TurboGears workshop), and ~15% went to the Business Office System.

Ka Receiver & Zpectrometer

Software changes for the Ka receiver software and Zpectrometer support spanned 12 Modification Requests and tasks this cycle. We allocated ~334 person-hours of effort this cycle but used ~317.

Continuing Education

In an effort to remain abreast of emerging technologies and software trends within astronomy, the Software Development Division engaged in two large continuing education activities this cycle. We developed and presented a workshop on TurboGears, a python web development framework, to invited staff from around the observatory. We also sent two representatives to ADASS 2007.

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