documentation/minutes/minutes-20010129.txt

Minutes of meeting 29/01/2001 @ 2pm
Location: UKC Computer Science Meeting Room

Present: ab11, ajm4, pjm2, tdb1
Absent: None

Paul informed the group about the host he had written in 
Perl during the week. It has most of the required features 
of a "basic" level host, and is more stable (due to regular 
expressions) than the Java host. Tim reported that the host 
(named ihost) was running fine on all the rocks, and had 
been for over 12 hours.

Tim reminded the group that another stab at a "24 hour" run 
was in progress, which had gone over the 10 hours of the 
first attempt. This was put down to the quota increase on 
raptor for mySQL.

Paul reminded the group of the changes to the database. Over 
the week he and Tim had discussed ways of improving database 
access, as 2 million rows for 10 hours was ridiculous. It 
was decided that a "flat" table with the XML string stored 
in a complete state would be best (with a few key fields 
extracted). Not only should this reduce the number of rows, 
but it should reduce the disk usage. Paul reported that this 
had already been implemented on the server side, and data 
was being added using this method.

AJ told the group about the progress with his client. 
Although there were only a few "cosmetic" changes, a lot of 
work had been done with the "behind the scenes" stuff to 
make it better implement the server protocol, and to make it 
more Swing thread safe.

AJ then informed the group of his plans to improve the 
configuration side of the client, to make it fully implement
the server protocol, and to improve the visulisation of 
data.

Paul stated that the DBReporting tools would now need to be 
edited to use the new database format, and that he would 
work on this. He also said he'd get some more done on the 
command line client, although it was becoming tricky to make 
it work under both DOS and Unix.

Ash reported that the host development was going well, and 
all the central structure was in place. The "data grabbing" 
part still needed to be coupled with the Perl script, and 
the networking module had yet to be done. Tim added that he 
had some good stuff on networking, and would dig it out.

Ash also discussed some of the ideas behind alerting which 
both the host and the "local clients" would need to be based 
around. Tolerance levels will be stored in the central 
configuration, allowing them to be retrieved by both the 
host and the client. The host would use an "averaging" 
method to send data over longer periods of time, but based 
on these tolerances could send priority packets when 
something "bad" happened.

Tim was last to chip in and tell the group about progress 
with the server. The client interface was complete for TCP 
clients, such as those AJ and Paul are writing. The rest of 
the server is complete, and bugfixes have been carried out 
throughout the system as they are found. Tim suggested a 
"feature freeze" in the server for a while to allow work to 
continue on the rest of the system, and to provide a more 
stable testing platform for hosts and clients. The group 
agreed this was a code idea.

Tim said work was to continue on "patching and fixing" the 
server, but that he would now focus on setting up the 
architecture of the new "local clients". These would use a 
CORBA setup to connect into the Client Interface part of the 
server. Further details to follow when design has been 
completed.

On a final note the group discussed the benefits of 
demonstrating the system to jc (this was later backed up by 
iau). The group agreed to get the client looking better, the 
reporting tools ready, and the local clients in a decent 
state before this could happen. It was noted that the 
feedback from a potential end user could be invaluable to 
the project, but that time must be given to implement any 
changes resulting from this feedback.

There will be a meeting as usual with Ian, but at the later 
time of 2.15pm (now a regular time). The next group meeting 
will be next Monday.
Revision:	1.1
Committed:	Thu Feb 1 01:57:20 2001 UTC (23 years, 9 months ago) by tdb
Content type:	text/plain
Branch:	MAIN
CVS Tags:	PROJECT_COMPLETION, HEAD
Log Message:	Minutes from 29/01/2001.
#	User	Rev	Content
1	tdb	1.1	Minutes of meeting 29/01/2001 @ 2pm
2			Location: UKC Computer Science Meeting Room
3
4			Present: ab11, ajm4, pjm2, tdb1
5			Absent: None
6
7			Paul informed the group about the host he had written in
8			Perl during the week. It has most of the required features
9			of a "basic" level host, and is more stable (due to regular
10			expressions) than the Java host. Tim reported that the host
11			(named ihost) was running fine on all the rocks, and had
12			been for over 12 hours.
13
14			Tim reminded the group that another stab at a "24 hour" run
15			was in progress, which had gone over the 10 hours of the
16			first attempt. This was put down to the quota increase on
17			raptor for mySQL.
18
19			Paul reminded the group of the changes to the database. Over
20			the week he and Tim had discussed ways of improving database
21			access, as 2 million rows for 10 hours was ridiculous. It
22			was decided that a "flat" table with the XML string stored
23			in a complete state would be best (with a few key fields
24			extracted). Not only should this reduce the number of rows,
25			but it should reduce the disk usage. Paul reported that this
26			had already been implemented on the server side, and data
27			was being added using this method.
28
29			AJ told the group about the progress with his client.
30			Although there were only a few "cosmetic" changes, a lot of
31			work had been done with the "behind the scenes" stuff to
32			make it better implement the server protocol, and to make it
33			more Swing thread safe.
34
35			AJ then informed the group of his plans to improve the
36			configuration side of the client, to make it fully implement
37			the server protocol, and to improve the visulisation of
38			data.
39
40			Paul stated that the DBReporting tools would now need to be
41			edited to use the new database format, and that he would
42			work on this. He also said he'd get some more done on the
43			command line client, although it was becoming tricky to make
44			it work under both DOS and Unix.
45
46			Ash reported that the host development was going well, and
47			all the central structure was in place. The "data grabbing"
48			part still needed to be coupled with the Perl script, and
49			the networking module had yet to be done. Tim added that he
50			had some good stuff on networking, and would dig it out.
51
52			Ash also discussed some of the ideas behind alerting which
53			both the host and the "local clients" would need to be based
54			around. Tolerance levels will be stored in the central
55			configuration, allowing them to be retrieved by both the
56			host and the client. The host would use an "averaging"
57			method to send data over longer periods of time, but based
58			on these tolerances could send priority packets when
59			something "bad" happened.
60
61			Tim was last to chip in and tell the group about progress
62			with the server. The client interface was complete for TCP
63			clients, such as those AJ and Paul are writing. The rest of
64			the server is complete, and bugfixes have been carried out
65			throughout the system as they are found. Tim suggested a
66			"feature freeze" in the server for a while to allow work to
67			continue on the rest of the system, and to provide a more
68			stable testing platform for hosts and clients. The group
69			agreed this was a code idea.
70
71			Tim said work was to continue on "patching and fixing" the
72			server, but that he would now focus on setting up the
73			architecture of the new "local clients". These would use a
74			CORBA setup to connect into the Client Interface part of the
75			server. Further details to follow when design has been
76			completed.
77
78			On a final note the group discussed the benefits of
79			demonstrating the system to jc (this was later backed up by
80			iau). The group agreed to get the client looking better, the
81			reporting tools ready, and the local clients in a decent
82			state before this could happen. It was noted that the
83			feedback from a potential end user could be invaluable to
84			the project, but that time must be given to implement any
85			changes resulting from this feedback.
86
87			There will be a meeting as usual with Ian, but at the later
88			time of 2.15pm (now a regular time). The next group meeting
89			will be next Monday.