EPICS Data Streaming and HDF File Writing for ESS Benchmarked Using the Virtual AMOR Instrument

As a contribution to the European Spallation Source as part of BrightnESS, the Paul Scherrer Institut is involved in the streaming of EPICS data and the writing of NeXus compliant HDF5 files. We combine this development with the transition of the AMOR instrument at the Paul Scherrer Institut to EPICS and a streaming based data architecture. To guide our development before ESS has operational equipment, we use a detailed simulation of the instrument AMOR at SINQ to test and integrate our data streaming components. We convert EPICS data sources to Google FlatBuffers as our message format and distribute them using Apache Kafka. On the file writing side, we combine the messages from EPICS data sources as well as from neutron events to write HDF5 files at rates up to 4.8 GiB/s using Parallel HDF. This platform will also be used for testing the experiment control software on top of EPICS.