Design and Implementation of High Resolution Data Acquisition System
ProjectReport
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Project Report
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Office of Educational Programs
Developing the Network Switch Inventory Web Application
Isaac Stein: Computer Technology, Tallahassee Community College, Tallahassee, FL 32304
Nicholas Franco: C-ADCES Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton NY 11973
Body
Introduction:
Previously inventory of the network switches was monitored with Excel spreadsheets that
were very difficult and time consuming to keep up to date and accurate. Bill Eisele has
successfully created other web applications with PERL in an UNIX environment to help monitor
other network systems. Because of their effectiveness it was clear that there should be similar
applications to monitor other systems on the web. Nicholas Franco and Bill Eisele decided that
the inventory of the network switches would be the next project to work on.
Impact on BNL:
Network Switches cost thousands of dollars so if any of them goes unaccounted for that
could be a loss of a substantial amount of money. The Web application for inventory control of
the network switches is a cost effective and efficient way to solve a potentially expensive
problem of keeping track of inventory with spreadsheets. With the man hours saved on
maintaining the inventory employees can work on other projects.
What I did:
I first designed webforms according to the specifications given to me by Bill Eisele. I
then researched PERL code and wrote the webforms in CGI. I then researched UNIX commands
and compiled the CGI forms in UNIX until there were no errors. Bill Eisele then debugged the
CGI forms in UNIX until they worked with the database. I gained more understanding of
debugging in UNIX by watching Bill Eisele. See Appendix2.
DOE Mission:
The Web application for inventory control of the network switches is aligned with the
Department of Energy’s mission by providing operational excellence and helps to ensure
America’s security and prosperity by addressing technological solutions that help make a more
efficient system to manage energy and operational challenges through a web application that can
monitor and maintain the Network Switch inventory.
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Outcome:
The Web application for inventory control of the network switches is finished and
working well. After 2 months of research, testing, trial and error we finally ended up a web
application that can do the important job of monitoring hundreds of network switches in the
Collider Accelerator Department. See Appendix1.
Future Work:
As with most programs with databases, continued maintenance and updates will be
needed. All of the current inventory will need to be entered into the database. And any changes
like the state and location will need to be updated whenever they should change. Validation of
the input could also be very important. See Appendix3
Acknowledgements:
I would like to acknowledge the entire C-ADCES Group for everyone’s support.
I would like to especially thank Nicholas Franco for leading this project, choosing me to assist
and instructing me on the various network systems.
Bill Eisele for giving the design specifications, building the MySQL database, debugging and
technical instruction.
Appendices
Appendix1:
