Documentation applies to version 1.10 of the ConSys System kernel

Status:

The kernel design has now entered the third design circle. This circle should lead to the final design of the system. The second round pointed out some important faults in the design. To fix these faults, a minor rewriting of the code is necessary. The primary task of this design face will be to bring the documentation up to date, include the minor changes. Second, the actual changes in the code will be made. For a schedule, se 'Project parts' entry.

Overview:

• The kernel will be running as a Windows NT service. This service will be present at all machines running the ConSys System.
• The kernel consists of a number of layers. At computers that does not act as front-end computers the bottom layers will not be loaded, because they are responsible for handling the control hardware.

Each layer in the system has a specific role in the system:

• The Transport Layer is responsible for handling communication between the client and server parts of the system. In the current implementation the transport protocol is hardwired into the system. The Transport layer uses named pipes for sending information. It will be a small task to change the protocol to TCP/IP using windows sockets. For fast serialization of classes to and from the transport layer, a proprietary serialization scheme will be implemented.
• The Data Server layer is responsible for handling the incoming and outgoing data between the transport layer, and the lover level. This layer collects data from the devices packs them together and submits the data object to the transport layer for transmission. When data arrives it is the Data Server layer that is responsible for sending the data to the correct device.
• The Device layer is used to give the device drivers a common layout and functionality.
• The Driver layer is the system device drivers.
  
  

Last Modified 11 January 2019