TM services: an architecture for monitoring and controlling the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope manager (TM)

Abstract

The SKA project is an international effort (10 member and 10 associated countries with the involvement of 100 companies and research institutions) to build the world’s largest radio telescope. The SKA Telescope Manager (TM) is the core package of the SKA Telescope aimed at scheduling observations, controlling their execution, mon- itoring the telescope and so on. To do that, TM directly interfaces with the Local Monitoring and Control systems (LMCs) of the other SKA Elements (e.g. Dishes), ex- changing commands and data with them by using the TANGO controls framework. TM in turn needs to be monitored and controlled, in or- der its continuous and proper operation is ensured. This higher responsibility together with others like collecting and displaying logging data to operators, performing lifecycle management of TM applications, directly deal - when possible - with management of TM faults (which also includes a direct handling of TM status and performance data) and interfacing with the virtualization plat- form compose the TM Services (SER) package that is discussed and presented in the present paper.