DAQSIM: a data acquisition system simulation tool

At the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory, a tool for studying the behavior of data acquisition (DAQ) systems has been developed. It is based on the MODSIM object-oriented discrete-event simulation language. The tool allows system designers to evaluate alternative DAQ architectures in terms of deadtime, throughput, buffer usage, etc. The user can specify dynamically the number of chips, the size of buffers, the amount of processing time at different stages, the bandwidth of the links, etc. for various connection topologies. The type of input data is also user-selectable, e.g., fixed-size, GEANT extracted, zero-suppressed, or random, according to a number of probability distributions. DAQSIM has been used to study a network of data collection circuits in which 'push' and 'pull' control strategies have been compared.<
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