Agenda and Proposals

Validation of calibration data by subsystems

Calibration procedure should include evaluation of constants produced. This should be both on a channel-by-channel basis (so that individual channels may be marked unusable for trigger or data if appropriate) and also collectively by examining distributions (e.g., is the mean close enough to nominal? Is the distribution well-behaved?).

This evaluation should preferably be done before the calibration is registered at all in the metadata dbs, but definitely before the calibration is marked PROD. Ultimately, we'll also want more sophisticated performance checks which will probably have to be done after the calibration is registered DEV.

Validation of calibration file

For all xml calibration files, it is the responsibility of the person creating the file to ensure that it is valid xml, e.g. by using the xmlValidate command on SLAC linux.

No editing files in the official LATCalibRoot!!

Propose that, either upon registering in metadata dbs or at some regular interval (at least once a day) calibrations in the SLAC LATCalibRoot become read-only and that the owner be changed to a special maintainer user. At that point, only the official maintainer will be able to modify or delete the file. It's unlikely that there will ever be a good reason to modify a file in place. Calibration writers who wish to clean up old dev calibrations can make a request to the maintainer.

If someone needs to edit a file after putting it in LATCalibRoot, the procedure will be

1. Copy the file to a private area, giving it a new name (perhaps we need a standard way to append a version number?).
2. Edit as needed
3. Put the new file in the LATCalibRoot area
4. Register in metadata dbs. If the new file is a replacement for an existing production calibration, that calibration should be marked as superseded when the new one becomes production. With luck, rdbGUI will soon provide a simple way to do this all at once.