Rick Nelson

Who’s in control here?
November 20, 2006

At a recent LXI PlugFest in Boston, one session addressed the topic of resource management, the term used by the LXI Consortium to describe strategies for controlling access to LXI devices from multiple clients and over multiple interfaces. GPIB based systems generally did not have to contend with this issue because a GPIB system can have only one active controller at any time. Conflicts between remote access and the instrument’s front panel were generally resolved simply: the remote access won.

Because LXI devices provide Ethernet interfaces and built-in web capability, there is a much greater possibility for conflicts between multiple clients. The simplest strategy of allowing only one connection to be active at any time precludes some of LXI’s desirable features, such as viewing device status via a web page while the device executes a test under the control of a remote test program.

To address this issue, the LXI Consortium formed a resource management working group, chaired by David Poole of Aeroflex. During the session, the participants discussed the use cases and scenarios developed by the working group, with the aim of identifying all important use cases so the requirements derived from them will be complete. The group also discussed the strengths and weaknesses of potential strategies.

Once the working group is satisfied it has clear requirements, it will develop a robust strategy for managing LXI device resources. The LXI Consortium plans to include its chosen resource management strategy in a future version of the LXI specification.--Paul Franklin, Keithley Instruments, LXI Technical Committee Chair

Posted by Rick Nelson on November 20, 2006 | Comments (0)