Facing the Challenges of Experiment Control and Data Management at ESRF-EBS

In 2020 the new ESRF-EBS (Extremely Brilliant Source) took-up operation. With the much higher photon flux, experiments are faster and produce more data. To meet the challenges, a complete revision of data acquisition, management and analysis tools was undertaken. The result is a suite of advanced software tools, deployed today on more than 30 beamlines. The main packages are BLISS for experiment control and data acquisition, LIMA2 for high-speed detector control, EWOKS for data reduction and analysis workflows, and Daiquiri the web GUI framework. BLISS is programmed in Python, to allow easy sequence programming for scientists and easy integration of scientific software. BLISS offers: Configuration of hardware and experimental set-ups, a generic scanning engine for step-based and continuous data acquisition, live data display, frameworks to handle 1D and 2D detectors, spectrometers, monochromators, diffractometers (HKL) and regulation loops. For detectors producing very high data rates, data reduction at the source is important. LIMA2 allows parallel data processing to add the necessary computing power (CPU and GPU) for online data reduction in a flexible way. The EWOKS workflow system can use online or offline data to automate data reduction or analysis. Workflows can run locally or on a compute cluster, using CPUs or GPUs. Results are saved or fed back to the control system for display or to adapt the next data acquisition.