Chapter 7.  Real-Time Issues

There are several issues that we all know about as they can happen to even the best of us. Needless to say, some of these incidents are completely out of our control and are OS and application related. We can be faced with losing a day's worth of work due to, for example, the infamous blue screen or an unexpected quit by an application.

The moral of the story is that while one cannot be too careful about each and every detail, unexpected issues still happen in "real time"! Given that all scientific practices, methods, precautions, and regular practice of backing up of all work done are tediously followed, there is always one major cause of havoc that cannot always be avoided; in one word, what an "upgrade" can do to your otherwise functioning system!

In this chapter, we will see how to avoid the following real-time issues.

Resolving upgradation issues

It is generally understood that a new version of software should have less bugs and more features and support a wider variety of hardware; or let us just assume so.

Compatibility

When software giants such as Microsoft plan an upgrade or a new version, usually they have been in contact with companies that use their product the most (that is, companies with the largest monetary income). They are aware of what those customers want and what has been missing, and of course, what bugs still remain to be fixed on the upcoming upgrade.

Deployment strategy

We will not go into too much detail on this subject, but imagine a factory that has hundreds or thousands of PCs and they all need to be upgraded. Suddenly a simple upgrade may cause down time and extra labor to ensure a smooth upgrade.

Backward compatibility

I did mention that you may need to upgrade all systems in a factory, but almost always NOT all systems do the exact same functionality and there are always a few that...

NI's native instruments

In previous chapters, we used Arduino hardware and unofficial LabVIEW software modules to illustrate the examples. While this approach has its few advantages (price and simplicity), Arduino in fact is more of a beginner's and hobbyist environment than a professional development platform. Ideally, we would prefer to use NI's native hardware and software. Software wise we have been talking about LabVIEW and there should be no doubt that LabVIEW can go head to head with any graphical programming environment that is out there. It is by far the most used in R&D, science, and academia.

Hardware wise

NI offers several categories of hardware to accommodate DAQ measurements. CompactDAQ, CompactRIO, Ethernet, PCI, PCI Express, PXI Platform SCXI, USB, and wireless products ensure data acquisition and measurement in almost any environment and situation. But in reality, with all the benefits that each and every one of these devices provide, there is a cost associated that must...