January 15, 1998
The EARTHWORM project was started in 1993, mainly in response to a number of common needs identified by regional seismic networks: The automatic processing systems used by most regional networks were aging, and maintenance costs were growing; advances in seismic research required data from new, sophisticated sensors in order to provide viable research data; growing demands for immediate societal utility called for new and highly visible real-time products; and finally, shrinking funding meant that most individual networks could no longer support local system development efforts.
Most of the processing systems then in use had a number of drawbacks which made it difficult to enhance them to meet the new requirements: They were built on vendor-specific products, which tied them to high-price vendors, and deprived them of the benefits of the rapidly growing mass market. They tended to be tightly integrated, in the sense that functionally unrelated parts of the system shared a common resource, such as processor cycles, internal data paths, or peripheral devices. This resulted in systems that were difficult to modify, as changes to one function could cause malfunctions in an unrelated area.
The initial EARTHWORM effort had the specific mission of replacing the aging Rex Allen / Jim Ellis Real Time Pickers (RTPs) at Menlo Park. These devices had functioned well for decades and had become the mainstay of Menlo Park's ability to produce rapid event solutions. However, replacement parts were no longer available, and there was an urgent need to produce a replacement system in minimum time. This meant producing a system which could process over five hundred channels of data quickly and reliably.
In response to this, a delegation from Menlo Park was dispatched to present these problems to Carl Johnson, then at the University of Hawaii. Carl had produced many, if not most, of the seismic processing systems to date. The hope was that having been instrumental in creating the current situation, he might be in position to assist us in getting out of it. The visit bore fruit. Carl provided a number of ideas and algorithms that became the core of a new, common seismic processing system. As the system developed, a community of users and developers grew around it. The Council of National Seismic Systems formalized this process by a resolution creating a board of directors to guide its development. The effort currently consists of a that operate the system or it's derivatives and contribute to its development. Coordination of this effort is centered at the National Seismic Systems Project of the USGS in Golden, Colorado, which functions as the clearing house for development, distribution, documentation, and support.
One of Carl's most significant contributions is a set of principles to guide the design and implementation of a seismic processing system that would avoid some of the pitfalls of its predecessors:
Carl Johnson also provided a system architecture which implemented the above design goals. This basic scheme was developed by the EARTHWORM team at Menlo Park, and resulted in the scheme described below.
An EARTHWORM system consists of a set of modules 'immersed' in a message passing 'medium'. Each module performs some coherent task, such as data acquisition, phase picking, etc. Modules communicate by broadcasting and receiving various messages such as packets of trace data, phase picks, etc. The message passing scheme is analogous to radio communications: It consists of a message-carrying 'medium' and a set of standard routines which can be thought of as multi-frequency two-way radios operating in this medium. Modules can use these routines to broadcast messages into this medium on a specified 'frequency', and to 'tune in' to messages on specified 'frequencies'. Significant properties of this scheme are that: (1) a module cannot be prevented from broadcasting a message whenever it chooses; (2) any number of modules can listen in to some sending module(s) without affecting that module; (3) a module receives only the messages of interest to it and it is notified if it missed a message.
This 'medium' (the EARTHWORM transport layer) operates within one computer as well as between different computers. Standard TCP/IP network broadcasts (UDP) can be used to carry a batch of messages between computers, and shared memory regions are used to simulate such broadcasts within a computer. Each participating computer can be equipped with multiple network ports and multiple shared memory regions. Special adapter modules are used to link the message flows between a shared memory region and a network cable. Thus an EARTHWORM system can be configured to have a geometry of message passing paths tailored for a specific application, operating on any number of computers. Note that this scheme operates within one EARTHWORM system, spanning a maximum distance of several hundred meters. Message exchange between remote EARTHWORMs is handled by a different mechanism. The selective 'frequencies' of this 'medium' are implemented by attaching 'shipping tags' to all messages. They specify the module which created the message, the type of message it is, and the installation where the EARTHWORM system is running. Thus, for example, a message may be labeled as being a p-pick produced by the Rex Allen picker at Menlo Park, or a location produced by Hypo-inverse at Seattle. These tags are then used by the receiving routines to provide only the desired messages to a listening module.
The modules are independent main programs. Each module has free use of the file system and other system facilities. However, the EARTHWORM system offers several suites of support routines that can be used by the program to make it a compliant EARTHWORM module. One such suite is the collection of message passing routines (transport routines). These are used to acquire input data by requesting messages of certain type(s), and to broadcast output messages. Another set of routines is used to effect operating system independence by providing a common set of 'wrapper' routines for system-specific functions. For example, the system routines for starting a thread are different on Solaris and NT; the EARTHWORM system provides routines for both systems with the same name and arguments. Thus, if a program uses that routine, it can run on either operating system: the proper system-specific version of that routine will be automatically inserted when the program is built. This suite currently contains such 'wrappers' for all common functions. Routines are added as required. Moving EARTHWORM to a new operating system involves creating a new set of such 'wrapper' routines. EARTHWORM currently offers 'wrappers' for OS/2, Solaris, and Windows NT.
Modules generally read a configuration file at startup time. This file contains basic EARTHWORM parameters which define the module, specify which message 'medium' (message ring) it wishes to listen to, and which message ring it wishes to broadcast it's output messages to. In addition, this file can contain arbitrary operating parameters specific to its operation.
Error detection is accomplished via several mechanisms: Any module may broadcast an error message. Such messages are forwarded to a special module (StartStop, below), which takes appropriate actions based on the nature of the complaint. Each module can also provide a periodic heartbeat; if this heartbeat should cease an error would then be declared and processed. A module may also request to be restarted if its heartbeat should cease. In addition, the EARTHWORM as a whole can produce a heartbeat to an external monitoring device. Such a monitoring device, capable of generating pager messages, is available as part of the EARTHWORM system.
The suite of modules available in the EARTHWORM system is quite varied, but can be classified into several categories:
2. Data Sources: These are modules that introduce data into an EARTHWORM system. These consist of three types:
A table of module names organized by type of input, type of output and message type is useful to see how the different modules interact.
Several example configurations of the modules and what they do are provided with details on what each module does relative to the others.
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