Hi Tom We switch firmware around on our boards regularly (~20min observation windows) on KAT-7 and MeerKAT. But we maintain control of the various bitstreams ourselves, and manage the boards internally.
There is a master controller which handles allocation of processing nodes to various projects, and loads the appropriate firmware onto those boards for their use. The master controller has a standardised KATCP external-facing interface. But we write to the registers on the FPGAs ourselves -- ie only this controller has direct, raw access to the FPGAs. This "master controller" software process kills and starts separate software sub-processes as needed in order to run the various instruments. Sometimes they operate simultaneously by sub-dividing the available boards into separate resource pools. We have one special case where two completely independent computers access the hardware. We use this for internal testing and verification. But I wouldn't use that for a deployed, science-observation system due to risk of collisions. You'd have to implement some sort of semaphore/lock/token system, which would require co-ordination between the computers. To me, that seems like a complicated effort for such a simple task. Jason Manley Functional Manager: DSP SKA-SA On 28 Jan 2018, at 21:04, Tom Kuiper <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm interested in experience people have had using the same equipment > installed on a telescope for different projects using different firmware and > software. Have there been issues with firmware swapping? Are there software > issues that cannot be managed by using a different control computer or a > virtual environment in the same controller? In addition to your experience > I'd like a summary opinion: yes, it can be done without risking observations, > or no, better to have separate hardware. > > Many thanks and best regards, > > Tom > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "[email protected]" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "[email protected]" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
