Alarm Monitoring – Technical Infrastructure

Alarm monitoring 24/7

In TI we work eight-hour shifts monitoring the CERN infrastructure 24/7, and are one of the only teams that have a permanent year-round presence at CERN.

Alarm screens are the central pillar of our workflow.

Spectrum

At the origin of communications monitoring, Spectrum, a tool to oversee every switch and every router that may be stuck, without power or overloaded.

We cross check the information with other alarm systems to properly understand the origin of the fault.

We can also launch further analysis when needed and remotely power cycle devices in order to save intervention resources.

PSEN Alarm Module

Power Supervision for Electrical Network, or PSEN for short, incorporates an alarm screen application.

This is one of the main Alarm screens that TI uses. It is instrumental for diagnosing issues of electric origin.

It is a WinCC OA based SCADA developed by BE-ICS whose sole goal is monitoring CERN’s Electrical Network.

It incorporates more than 320,000 data points, 24,500 devices and 125,000 alarm states.

HelpAlarm

“One tool to rule them all…”

At the forefront of alarm monitoring systems, HelpAlarm provides an invaluable help to TI operators.

More than 284,000 alarms of the most diverse kind are monitored with this cornerstone that is HelpAlarm.

A web application with the purpose of quickly and clearly displaying the most relevant alarms that arise in very diverse domains, such as:

Cooling and ventilation, water treatment, compressed air, boilers, CO2 systems, vacuum systems, fire and smoke detection, access points, environmental monitoring systems, communications…

Spectrum

PSEN Alarm Module

Further insights

We use a wide variety of trending and charting tools to gather further insights from data.

This way we can better assess what the actual situation is and what the best course of action would be.

TIMBER

The list goes on and on. Large amounts of data are logged for later use.

Comparing past events or correlating data when needed, makes TIMBER a tool of great value.

PSEN Trend Module

To further diagnose device states PSEN incorporates its own trending tools, to quickly gather information about the previous state of up to eight devices at the same time.

Following critical values allows us to better diagnose and report on different electrical issues that arise.

TIM Viewer Tag history chart

We use different SCADAs from different families, each with its own trending and charting tools which have their own particularities.

WRAP

We also use views in our Wall-screens to monitor live status of the main accelerators in the complex.

This allows us to quickly correlate problems of different nature and their direct impact to the accelerator chain.

TIMBER

The list goes on and on. Large amounts of data are logged for later use.

Comparing past events or correlating data when needed, makes TIMBER a tool of great value.

PSEN Trend Module

SCADA

In TI we have access to several remote Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems.

CERN is collecting real-time data from sensors and equipment scattered all across the accelerator complex.

Upon receiving an alarm, we remotely connect to the dedicated supervision of the installations in order to understand the magnitude of the problem and react accordingly. We become the eyes of different teams that need to see what is going on beyond the systems they own.

The list goes on…

Technical Infrastructure operators, as first responders, we deal with many, many SCADAs, which makes our job more demanding and interesting at the same time.

PSEN Supervision

PSEN is a dedicated SCADA to monitor CERN’s electric network in real time with millisecond precision.

Being able to quickly navigate through the vast network of electrical devices that CERN needs, makes efficient troubleshooting possible.

TIP

The Technical Infrastructure Portal, an instance of UNICOS supervision, gathers a significant number of SCADA views.

Namely, it gathers cooling, HVAC, compressed-air, and discharge-water monitoring applications from across CERN.

Vent LHC

The LHC is such a large machine that it has its own dedicated ventilation supervision system.

All the air flow that traverses the tunnels is monitored remotely.

REMUS

Discharge water monitoring to ensure minimum impact on the ecosystem.

Dedicated cooling systems

Several specific installations around CERN still use their own dedicated supervision.

The list goes on…

Technical Infrastructure operators, as first responders, we deal with many, many SCADAs, which makes our job more demanding and interesting at the same time.