OpenVMS Device Driver Development
PARSEC Group has developed device drivers for OpenVMS terminals, printers, optical disks, telemetry controllers and time/frequency modules. These drivers have been developed on all three OpenVMS platforms: Integrity Servers, Alpha and VAX. Let us know about your needs and we will show you how we can help you. Below are examples of some of the OpenVMS device drivers PARSEC Group has written for clients of various industries.
VMIPCI-5565 Reflective Memory Interface
I wish to thank PARSEC Group, and especially Paul Williams, for developing/porting OpenVMS v8 IA64 software drivers for the GE Intelligent Platforms PCI-5565 (reflective memory) and the Symmetricom bc635PCI-V2 (IRIG) cards. These cards supply the high-speed inter-processor communication and precise timing/time-stamping cornerstones for the Data Acquisition and Control Systems (DACS) used at NASA's White Sands Test Facility (WSTF).
Your extensive knowledge and expertise in OpenVMS and IA64 allowed you to rapidly develop/port these software drivers. Your willingness to accept our suggestions/requests and make customizations to your drivers and their interfaces has resulted in very robust, deterministic, and usable drivers.
Darwin P.
Senior Systems Analyst at WSTF
The GE PCI-5565 Reflective Memory Interface allows data to be shared between mutiple hosts through a high-speed memory interconnect. Modifications to the local memory are broadcast over a high speed fiber-optic network to synchronize with memory on the other nodes. PARSEC Group developed an OpenVMS Alpha and OpenVMS IA64 driver for this interface that includes the following features:
- Configuration of the interface in the Reflective Memory Network
- Enable/disable parity error detection
- Support for big-endian and little-endian mode
- Support for mapping the reflective memory into an OpenVMS global section
- Sending a doorbell interrupt to one or all other nodes in the Reflective Memory Network
- Setting up an attention AST to receive doorbell interrupts
- Reading doorbell interrupts with an associated message
- Flush all doorbell interrupts from the queue
- Sending OPCOM messages to log errors on the interface
- Support for auto-configuration using the SYSMAN utility
Symmetricom BC635PCI Datum Time Frequency Processor
Symmetricom's Time and Frequency Processor provides precision time and frequency reference to the host computer. Time is acquired from time code signals, typically IRIG B. PARSEC Group developed a driver for this processor to work on OpenVMS IA64 and OpenVMS Alpha systems. Features of the driver include:
- Support for setting and reading the current time in the processor
- Configuration of each of the supported time formats
- AST delivery at scheduled intervals
- Full support for 64-bit addressing
- Support for dual-port memory on the interface
- Support for auto-configuration using the SYSMAN utility
4422-PCI All-In-One Telemetry Data Acquisition System
The 4422-PCI is a multi-function interface supporting decommutation, PCM simulator, IRIG timecode reader and big synchronizer. PARSEC Group wrote an OpenVMS Alpha device driver for this interface with features to:
- Support DMA read and write to DECOM memory
- Control of LEDs to indicate status of interface
- Support of dual-interrupt I/O requests
- Configure, start and stop DECOM processor
- Configure on-board IRIG clock
- Configure 4400-TF bit synchronizer
- Support buffered objects and fast I/O
- Support for auto-configuration using the SYSMAN utility
Performance Data Collection
PARSEC Group ported an OpenVMS Alpha V7.2 driver used to collect system performance metrics to OpenVMS IA64. Included in the port was the addition of more metrics and application changes to improve the performance and benefits of the driver. PARSEC Group and Computer Associates have been awarded patent 20090157923 for their work on the data collection done by this driver.
USB Temperature Sensor
While technically not written as an OpenVMS device driver, PARSEC Group has programmed an application to monitor server room temperatures using a USB temperature sensor on OpenVMS IA64. This application monitors the temperature of the server room, logs the data in a MySQL database, and sends out alerts when the temperature exceeds a preset threshold.
For additional information, please contact us at 888-4PARSEC, send an e-mail to experts@parsec.com or use our inquiry form.