Uli presents results of a discussion with Helfried B. on some issues raised during the last joint meeting: general rack and crate monitoring, PCs required for OPC server and subdetector control station, capabilities of the CERN OPC server currently available.

Uli reports on the DCS meeting (Feb.18). Main issues were: 
JCOP framework, including a demonstration of a 2-ELMB CAN branch (software setup and operation). Plans for test setups in 2003 (inner detector and H8 muon test beam) were presented. New versions of DDC, OPC, and ELMB firmware are available. The ELMB firmware is being re-partitioned into packages useful for non-standard ELMB users.
Announcements: 
1) A DCS “working week” will take place from April1, including a PVSS and a JCOP framework course.
2) ELMBs (final batch) will need to be ordered before March 28.

Finally 4 options are discussed for the TCM-resident bridge between the crate CAN bus and the DCS-side CAN branch:
1) ELMB + an additional CAN chip connecting to the crate bus
2) ELMB connecting to the crate bus via a Fujitsu controller via I2C
3) ELMB connecting to the crate bus via a 2nd CAN chip and a Fujitsu dual CAN controller
4) Fujitsu controller only, with a single ELMB for the whole of the calorimeter trigger.
In either case all crate controllers can be tied to a single CAN branch connected to a PCI/CAN interface. CERN standard is the 4-channel Kvaser card.

It is made clear that there are currently only 2 ways to import the environmental data into the DCS system: either generate CANopen messages in the firmware (ELMB acting as a bridge as described here) or write/modify an OPC server. The implications should be looked at by software people. It is decided to buy a sufficient number of ELMB to allow for crate-level bridges. We will have to look into the maximum logical channel-count per ELMB to make sure all environmental data in each crate can be forwarded to the DCS system.