[libdc] Production system hardware selection

[Ulrik K. P. <ulr...@us...>]

Hello,

This is my first post on this list although I have been subscribing to
it for quite a while now.

Here at Diamond we are about to do a fairly major switch over from
using VxWorks based firewire camera systems on a powerpc/VME platform
to using a Linux (x86 PC) based solution.

We have already ported our software application to dc1394 using normal
desktops (CentOS 5.2 with the CentOSPlus kernel with the old firewire
kernel modules) and some randomly selected firewire PCI cards. It all
seems to work without too much trouble - thanks for all the good work
to make dc1394 stable and easy to use!

Now that we are about to roll it out in production around the site (I
guestimate some ~10 machines with ~70 cameras in total) I would just
like to hear what kind of hardware others have successfully used in
production in various places...

What we initially plan to go for is something like:
 * 19" 1/2u high rackmounted servers. Probably Dell manufacturered.
 * Dual or Quad core intel CPU's.
 * RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 (5.2) but with the default 'juju' kernel
modules replaced with the older firewire kernel modules. Our sysadmins
have not yet decided on the details of distribution/kernel/modules.
 * PCI Express firewire A + B card of *some sort*.
 * 1 or 2 firwire cards per machine.

Obviously we intend to purchase a test system first and run our
application under various loads for extended periods. However, to
stear in the right direction or at least avoid pitfalls it would be
helpful if someone out there has had experience in selecting
production hardware to use with firewire cameras.

So does anyone have experience using any of the above mentioned parts
for firewire camera control and readout? In particular I'm interested
in recommendations of PCI express firewire cards that have been
running well in production systems. Is something in this sort of
configuration just *not* going to work???

Thanks,

--------------------------------------------------------------------

  Ulrik Pedersen               phone: +44(0)1235-778580
  Software Engineer            email: Ulrik.Pedersen _AT_ diamond.ac.uk

      Diamond Light Source Ltd.
      Rutherford Appleton Laboratory,
      Chilton, Didcot
      OxfordShire OX11 0DE

--------------------------------------------------------------------