weaveworks
Add EPICS Archiver Appliance data source support
What does this do?
As noted in the changelog:
Added EPICS Archiver Appliance data source support. This data source interfaces with a tool that provides historical time series data for process variables exposed by way of a distributed control system platform named EPICS. EPICS is commonly used in synchrotron and X-ray free electron laser facilities around the world. For more information on the data source, see https://sasaki77.github.io/archiverappliance-datasource/.
Why is it a good idea?
This is admittedly specific to facilities/users who might be in the synchrotron or x-ray free electron laser communities. We at the LCLS (part of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) will certainly get use out of the code in this PR and grafanalib.
Context
For those unfamiliar with EPICS:
- Facilities where EPICS can be found: https://epics.anl.gov/projects.php
- High-level information: https://epics-controls.org/about-epics/
The archiver appliance itself, which this data source interfaces with:
- https://slacmshankar.github.io/epicsarchiver_docs/
Questions
I haven't fully tested the output of grafanalib with this. Anecdotally it did create a few basic graphs with functions, though, so it's at least a working proof-of-concept.
I understand that this may not have general applicability and would understand if the authors did not want to see it included. With the above in mind, would this be an acceptable inclusion, or should we maintain this in a separate package?
(cc @n-wbrown @zllentz @sasaki77)
Thanks for the PR, once you are happy with it please mark a 'ready' and I will review properly. Looks good so far from a skim read and well documented. ✅
Please feel free to add an example of how to use the EPICS Archiver Appliance data source to here, to help other people wanting to use this data source.
I'm afraid I have yet to get back around to it - I had some additional local changes but never finished it. I do appreciate your openness to including this in grafanalib, though.
If you prefer, I would have no issue closing the PR and reopening it once I manage to circle back.
Going to close this PR as there is no progress on it. Feel free to re-open if this is not the case