Introduction

Overview

MalcolmJS provides a web-based graphical interface to the underlying functionality provided by the Malcolm middleware library, which itself provides a common interface to a range of control system and data management technologies.

The web-based environment does not provide direct access to hardware components. Instead, information about the hardware components themselves, and the data they generate, is shared with our user environment via Malcolm. This allows you to generate a virtual representation of your control system before providing design and configuration information about it to Malcolm via a dedicated service. Malcolm takes this information and uses it to interface with the underlying physical hardware. We can consider this schematically as:

_images/system_context.svg

The Malcolm Service provides three key capabilities:

  • Details of the building blocks available to our user environment, allowing a System Implementor to set up their control system components realistically. During this process design decisions can be validated against pre-defined parameters to ensure validity of the design.
  • Once deployed into an operational environment the service monitors attribute status and data as it moves through the system, providing near real-time monitoring of key components and indicating when pre-defined operating parameters are exceeded.
  • Ongoing persistance of design information and results during operation, providing assurances that designs are documented (and can be interrogated in the future), and can be re-used in the future.

How is the Documentation Structured

This documentation is divided into two sections:

  • The User Guide provides information about how to work with your new environment. The Quick Start guide within this contains everything you need to get up-and-running. Subsequent sections provide more reference-focussed material describing functionality and capabilities in more detail.
  • The System Maintenance Guide describes how the system has been designed and implemented. It also contains information on the routine maintenance activity you will need to perform to keep your system performing in an optimal way.