Service asset and configuration management in ALICE Detector Control System

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is one of the big LHC (Large Hadron Collider) detectors at CERN. It is composed of 19 sub-detectors constructed by different institutes participating in the project. Each of these subsystems has a dedicated control system based on the commercial SCADA package ^WinCC Open Architecture and numerous other software and hardware components delivered by external vendors. The task of the central controls coordination team is to supervise integration, to provide shared services (e.g. database, gas monitoring, safety systems) and to manage the complex infrastructure (including over 1200 network devices and 270 VME and power supply crates) that is used by over 100 developers around the world. Due to the scale of the control system, it is essential to ensure that reliable and accurate information about all the components – required to deliver these services along with relationship between the assets – is properly stored and controlled. In this paper we will present the techniques and tools that were implemented to achieve this goal, together with experience gained from their use and plans for their improvement. (author)