Glossary

Tango Controls
Tango Controls is an object oriented, distributed control system framework which defines communication protocol and API as well as provides a set of tools and libraries to build software for control systems, especially SCADA.
Core
Tango Core
Tango Core is a set of main tools, libraries and specifications of the Tango Controls framework. It consists of libraries and API definitions for C++, Java and Python as well as tools to manage the system: Astor, Jive, etc.
SCADA
It is an abbreviation standing for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition.
device server
A Device Server is a program (executable) which is able to create devices of certain classes. A Device Server may implement one or multiple classes and instantiate one or more devices. A running device server is called a Device Server instance.
instance
device server instance
A running device server is called a device server instance. So it means, it is a process. Every device server instance has an unique name in Tango Controls by which it can be referenced. The name is built as {DeviceServerName}/{instanceName}. For each running device server the system creates a special device of DServer class: dserver/{DeviceServerName}/{instanceName}. This device provides a management facility for the corresponding device server instance (see DServer class device commands).
class
device class
A Device Class is an abstraction of a device’s interface. It defines attributes, pipes, commands and properties which a device of the class provides to users and to other components of a Tango system. A device class ofter relates to a specific kind of equipment it allows to interface with like a SerialLine class defines interface to communicate with serial line equipment.
device
A device is a key concept of Tango Controls. It is an object providing access to its attributes, pipes and commands. The list of attributes, pipes and commands available for a certain device is defined by its device class. The device may be related to a hardware device it interfaces with or it may be a kind of a logical device providing some functionalities not directly related to hardware.
attribute
An attribute represents a process value (or values) in the system. It may have different formats or dimensions like scalar(0D), spectrum(1D) or image(2D). The attribute allows to read and/or write these values depending on programmer-defined access. The values may have different data types. In addition, an attribute provides some metadata like attribute quality, timestamp or configuration properties. For a complete list please refer to the manual. A list of attributes available for a certain device is defined by its class.
dynamic attribute
A device may create attributes which configration is determined during device initialization or even at runtime. This kind of attributes is called dynamic.
command
A command is an operation a user may invoke on a device (eg. SwitchOn, SwitchOff). It also relates to a specific method in OOP (Object-Oriented Programming). Tango Controls allows a command to get input argument (argin) and to return a value (argout). List of available commands for a certain device is defined by its device class.
pipe
A pipe allows to read and/or write a structured data from and/or to a device. The data may be built out of several basic Tango datatypes. The structure of data is defined by a device class and is not fixed. It may be changed at runtime by the device itself or modified upon request from a client according to set_pipe_config operation provided by pipe. List of pipes available for a device is defined by its device class.
state
device state
A device may be in a certain state determined at runtime. State of a device may reflect state of a piece of equipment it interfaces with or be determined in other way. The behaviour is defined by the device class which implements a state machine. The state may define attributes’, commands’ and pipes’ operations available at the moment. Tango Controls limits a set of states the device may be in to 11: ON, OFF, RUNNING, OPEN, CLOSE, INSERT, EXTRACT, INIT, ALARM, FAULT and UNKNOWN.
state machine
A state machine for a device class defines operations (commands’, attributes’ and pipes’ access) available in different states of a device.
Tango Host
Each Tango Controls system/deployment has to have at least one running DataBaseds device server. The machine on which DataBaseds device server is running has a role of a so called Tango Host. DataBaseds is a device server providing configuration information to all other components of the system as well as a runtime catalog of the components/devices. It allows (among other things) client applications to find devices in distributed environment.
Tango Database
A database providing configuration and some runtime information about Tango Controls components in so called Tango System instance or deployment. It is used by Databaseds device server and constitutes Tango Host.