Archiver: explore a time-series database

[Tom-Willemsen]

Issue Description

As a developer I would like to understand whether a time-series database such as influxdb would be more supportable / easier to adapt to our needs than the archiver appliance.

This is exploratory work, where the goal is to form an opinion on whether this would be better/worse than the archive appliance implementation we started doing a PoC of.

This ticket should be timeboxed.

How & Where?

Some items for the reading list:

• https://accelconf.web.cern.ch/icalepcs2023/papers/tupdp108.pdf (from our colleagues over on the ISIS accelerator - we can also just talk to them about what they like/dislike...)
• https://indico.jacow.org/event/80/contributions/5947/contribution.pdf
• https://inspirehep.net/files/0b1eac4f436be0b3e220459d5d4cea9f
• https://accelconf.web.cern.ch/icalepcs2017/papers/thpha032.pdf
• https://github.com/ControlSystemStudio/cs-studio/pull/2246/files
  • hypothetically if we wrote our data in that format into influxdb, without necessarily actually using the CSS archiver, the existing databrowser in the GUI would likely work... this is something I think is worth exploring.
  • At the very least this is an archive implementation where someone has already used influxdb, so will likely contain useful implementation ideas/inspiration.

Acceptance Criteria

• [ ] Read the above material and any other related material around archiving into timeseries databases at comparable facilities
• [ ] Write an exploratory proof-of-concept that puts data into a timeseries database (influxdb is suggested, but if an obvious alternative emerges that is also fine)
  • Decimation/downsampling - prove it's possible (it should be simple!)
• [ ] Document any pros/cons of the approach
• [ ] Generate tickets to further the implementation

How to Review

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• Provide screenshots of the feature to help the reviewer if relevant

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...

_{To the reviewer: Make sure to update submodules!}

[FreddieAkeroyd]

• I think I recall a conversation with Kai about influx - the work was done as a proff of concept by a fixed term student, and i can't remember how complete it was as i thought the work stopped when they finished, but maybe it was continued furtehr.
• from a previous conversation with accelerators, i think there were issues with array data and influxdb

[FreddieAkeroyd]

I was looking at TimescaleDB at one point - I may have though it could potentially drop in as a replacement DB with better performance , but that was a while back and I may misremember. I think it may potentially handle logging of an array datatype better than influx.