DAQSIM: a data acquisition system simulation tool

At the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory (SSC) a tool for studying behavior of data acquisition (DAQ) systems has been developed. It is based on the MODSIM II object-oriented discrete-event simulation language. The tool allows system designers to evaluate alternative DAQ architectures in terms of deadtime, throughput and buffer usage etc. The user can specify dynamically the number of chips, the size of buffers, the amount of processing time at different stages, as well as 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 is used to study a network of data collection circuits (DCCs) in which push and pull control strategies are compared.<
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