From: B.Gilli
                                                           Date: 2000.10.10


               VLT-SW-FEB2000 - RELEASE NOTES FOR CCS, full & Lite versions
               ============================================================



New Features (with respect to FEB2000):
=======================================


CCS_Lite extensions:
-------------------- 

     - db:
        Support for some simple calculations within the database:
		 Syntax equivalent to the Rtap Calculation engine.
		 Available operators and functions:
	 		( ), +, -, *, /, =, <>, >, >=, <, <=, AND, OR, NOT,
	 		IF, FAC, MAX, MIN, POW, SQRT, VECPRODUCT, SCAN,
                        SCANV, PUT, INDEX, SETCQUAL
	Support for attribute quality setting through the CE function SETCQUAL.
        Addressing by content is now fully supported.

     - alrm:
	Dummy alrm classes for CCS_Lite to facilitate application porting.

     - ccs
	Introduction of ccsRunCmd for process scheduling identical to RtapRunCmd,
	 and of ccsCmdServer to support process scheduling (time or event driven) from a
	 configuration table in the database.

	Support for autorestart field in CcsEnvTable.

     - Support for plotting, trending, and historical data gathering:
	samp module modified, 2 new modules: plot and his.
	Standard CcsEnvTable modified to initialise plotting and historian db root points.

     - Ccs (Java interface to CCS_Lite)
	There is now a CcsDbMonitor class added with methods to
       	read from / write into the CCS database. Currently only
       	scalar attributes are supported (boolean, double, float,
       	int, long, short, string).



FULL & LITE CCS:
----------------
	
     - logging system:
	  logAddFits facility allowing to log Fits keywords from the shell
	
     - sampCtrl panel redesigned, and used also in the ccs_lite version.
       
     - Support for remote event notification between heterogeneous environments (Lite/Full)

     - The fftw package (Fast Fourrier Ttrnsform library) is now delivered as part of CCS.
       The following libraries are generated and installed:
	- libsfftw; single precision fft on complex numbers
        - libsrfftw; single precision fft on real numbers.
       both are built as archive and shared libraries. The archive versions being also
       generated for the LCUs. Documentation can be found in the fftw/doc directory.

     - dbl:
	the dbl process accepts now a new option, namely "-x <language>".
       	This way one can make dbl deviate from the default usage of c++
       	as include-file language for the preprocessor. Valid values for 
       	<language> depend on the compiler used, and are described in its
       	manpages (e.g. gcc(1)).
       	This option can be used within the VLT Makefile by means
       	of the variable DBL_FLAGS (see Makefile(5)).


	
   Changes (with respect to FEB2000):
=====================================
FULL_CCS:
---------
     - RTAP
	A new licensing scheme has been agreed with HP, Agilent.
	In order to use it, the Rtap cumulative PATCH PHRP_0131 must be installed and
        a set of new passwords must be installed on every WS running Rtap.
        Detailed instructions on how to obtain the patch, the passwords, and how to install them
        wil be distributed to all interested people.

 CCS_LITE:
---------

     - improved error handling when connecting to a remote database.
	
     - qsemu checks that user name associated with messages from remote envs exists
	in local env. If not existing, messages are simply dropped and a log is produced to 
        report the event. Since user name list is built at env startup, whenever a new user
	is added, the environment must be restarted.

     - Improved qsemu connection, and re-connection after failure, to remote environments.

     - Event queue (option -q of dbStartup) can be configured to any size. Limit is only 
        available shared memory. Default is still 200 entries.

     - Improved process scheduling & registration within environment allowing better
	process termination cleanup.

     - Improved ccsPerfMon, output fitting standard xterm, and split in several pages.

     - Ccs (Java interface to CCS_Lite)
       Improved the event loop and the handling of threads.


Common to Full & Lite versions:
-------------------------------

     -  book module obsolete and removed from distribution.

     - 	logging system configuration: There is now one logManager per environment,
         normally scheduled at environment startup. The new Rtap/CcsEnvTable template\
         contains such an entry.
	 The logManager retrieves the list of LCUs reporting to that environment from the file 
         logLCU.config located into the environment directory. 

     -  msg system:
	msgSendReply prototype has been slightly modified to correct a wrong declaration.
	7th parameter, of type ccsERROR cannot be a const, since it is modified by the function.
 	
	the CDT syntax is now more strictly checked, resulting in rejecting some CDTs that
	 used to be loaded without errors. Typical cases are invalid ":" or ";" characters
	 at the end of some tokens like "PUBLIC_COMMANDS".
	The simplest way to check your CDTs is to use the ccseiMsg tool:
		First select a process and then
		Select in the "Windows" menu the "CDT File Setup" option.
		From there, click the "Check CDT" button.
	The output window will report location of invalid syntax errors in the process CDT.

     -  db:
	dbWrite utility now checks integer (signed and unsigned) values.
	dbReadSymbolic returns correct actual size in all cases.

     -  samp: 
	extended to support 8 attributes sampled from a single LCU.

     -  plot:
        The plot module, based on the PGPLOT toolkit, is available as replacement
        of the RtapPlotDisp (called plotDisplay), on both versions of CCS. 
        However, this first release doesn't provide yet a full replacement for the 
        Rtap functionality.

        The utility plotDisplay supports the follwing data sources and only in the local
        environment :
        - A generic database attribute of type SCALAR.
        - Plot Table
        - History Table

        The module plot provides a graphical user interface to change the main
        plot configuration as well as the configuration of each pen.
        The two GUI are called plotPenConfig and plotConfigGUI.


     - improved error logging from scan, evt and db.

     - vcc : LCU environment generation supports MV162 slave boards.
	     improved support for off-line generation of environments.
	     support for Tornado 2 debugger.





Some performance comparison CCS_Lite versus full CCS versions.
All measurements performed on HP A 9000/785 Workstations.
Full CCS is HP-UX 10.20 + Rtap 6.7
CCS_Lite is HP-UX 11.00


Database access, number of operations per second:
			FULL	Lite	Unit
Local Database:	
Read Symbolic		42000	27000	Read/second
Read Alias		45500	36500   Read/second
Read Direct	       230000  985000   Read/second
Write Symbolic		10500	 8400	Write/second
Write Alias		10500	 9250	Write/second
Write Direct		10750	13250	Write/second
Multiread		27500	60000   Read of a set of attributes/second
Multiwrite		 7250	 8300	Write of a set of attributes/second

Message system:

Process A sends 1 command to process B, and waits for the reply (1024 bytes long) before
repeating the exchange.
The measurement reports the number of exchanges per second, when both processes run in the
same environment, and when they run in two different environments, but on the same host.

Local env		4379	5148	cmd + reply/second
Remote, same host	 950	 900    cmd + reply/second

   All changes and enhancements are documented in the on-line documentation.

                                ___oOo___