Configuration Management

Introduction

System designers need to give careful consideration to the software configuration management procedures for their machines. To ensure machine consistency and quality, a process for software installation, configuration, version control, and verification must be implemented. Addressing this issue early in the development cycle will significantly reduce confusion and mistakes. Failure to implement some basic procedures can cause unknown machine configurations, costly field repairs/upgrades, mysterious intermittent problems, broken equipment, and possible injury.

SynqNet, the MPI, and Software tools contain several features to make configuration management easy. Please take the time to understand and use these features before you begin development.

Software Components

The MEI software distribution contains several software components which need to be loaded onto the machine, controller, and SynqNet nodes. The MPI DLL, header files, import libraries, device driver, utility programs, controller binaries, sample code, etc. are all loaded onto your hard drive by the InstallShield distribution. Additionally, the controller contains on-board flash memory to store DSP code, FPGA code and configuration information. MEI controllers shipped from the factory will NOT have DSP code or FPGA code in flash memory. You will need to download the appropriate controller firmware (.bin) and FPGA (.fpg) code into your controller's flash memory. Each SynqNet node has flash memory to store the FPGA runtime image. MEI nodes shipped from the factory will not have FPGA runtime images in flash memory. You will need to download the appropriate node FPGA image (.sff) into each of your node's flash memory. Some nodes have drive processor(s) which also require drive firmware to be downloaded. Please consult your drive manufacturer's documentation for details.

See Also

Controller Binary Images
Node Binary Images
Drive Binary Images