The devices implement following topology:

In default mode:

In test mode:

• flpSyncSampler publishes timeframe IDs at configurable rate (only for the test mode).
• flpSenders generate dummy data of configurable size and distribute it to the available epnReceivers.
• epnReceivers collect all sub-timeframes (according to number of FLPs), merge them and send further.
• flpSenders choose which epnReceiver to send a given sub-timeframe to based on its ID (timeframeId % NumEPNs), ensuring that sub-timeframes with the same ID arrive at the same epnReceiver (without need for additional synchronization).
• Upon collecting sub-timeframes from all flpSenders, epnReceivers send confirmation to the sampler with the timeframe ID to measure roundtrip time (only for the test mode).
• epnReceivers can also measure intervals between receiving from the same FLP (used to see the effect of traffic shaping).
• The devices can run in test mode (as described above) and default mode where flpSenders receive data instead of generating it (as used by the Alice HLT devices).
• Optional deployment and execution via DDS.

The devices are configured via command line options and their connection parameters via JSON file. Most of the command line options have default values. These default values are for running in the default mode. Running in test mode requires a few modifications. Refer to startFLP2EPN-distributed.sh.in and flp2epn-prototype.json for example configuration.

These are the required device options:

flpSyncSampler (only for the test mode)

• --id arg Device ID
• --mq-config arg JSON configuration file

flpSender

• --id arg Device ID
• --mq-config arg JSON configuration file
• --num-epns arg Number of EPNs
• only for test mode: --test-mode arg (=0) "1" to run in test mode

epnReceiver

• --id arg Device ID
• --mq-config arg JSON configuration file
• --num-flps arg Number of FLPs
• only for test mode: --test-mode arg (=0) "1" to run in test mode

To list all available device options, run the executable with --help.

When running with DDS, configuration of addresses is also not required, because these are configured dynamically. Refer to flp2epn-prototype-dds.json and the DDS configuration files for an example.