Broadband Release Info

Creating a New Broadband Platform Release

This page contains instructions for creating a release of the SCEC Broadband Platform software. A release consists of the main BBP source distribution, along with one or more region packages, containing GFs and region-specific parameters for each of the methods supported by the Platform, and optionally validation packages, which contain event specific data and can be used to run the Broadband Platform in validation mode.

Testing Before Release

The first step to release a version of the Broadband Platform is to run tests to make sure the Platform is working.

Unit Tests

The Platform contains a number of tests cases designed to test each individual software component of the platform. These are called Unit Tests, and can be executed with the following commands:

$ cd tests
$ ./UnitTests.py

The tests take about 20 minutes to run, and after each test you should see an 'ok' message.

Acceptance Tests

The next step is to run the acceptance tests. These tests are complete end-to-end simulation runs, for both scenario and validation simulations using each of the available methods on the Broadband Platform.

In order to start the tests, just follow these steps:

$ cd tests
$ ./AcceptTests.py

These tests will take just over 2 hours to run, and after each test completes, you should see an "ok" message. Here's the sample output of a successful test run:

Number of tests to run: 12
test_user-CSM (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_user-EXSIM (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_user-GP (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_user-SDSU (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_user-UCSB (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_valid-northridge-CSM (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_valid-northridge-EXSIM (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_valid-northridge-GP (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_valid-northridge-GP_seis (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_valid-northridge-SDSU (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_valid-northridge-SDSU_seis (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok
test_valid-northridge-UCSB (__main__.BBP2G_Acceptance_Tests) ... ok

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 12 tests in 7639.309s

OK

Note that, all acceptance tests have their 'xml' workflow already created in the 'ref_data' directory of the BBP distribution. When modifications are made to the top-level workflow builder script, or to the interface between modules (e.g. adding/removing parameters a module uses), it is necessary to recreate these 'xml' workflow description files. This can be easily done with the 'comps/gen_accept_tests.py' script.

Full Validation Tests

The acceptance tests use a small number of stations to validate the codes inside the Broadband Platform. A more extensive test is to run a complete validation tests using a larger number of stations. The Broadband Platform is distributed with 2 validation packages that can be used to make sure everything is working properly. In order to run these validation simulations, users have to make sure they have all the needed dependencies installed on their computer. The Northridge event uses the LABasin velocity model package, and the LomaPrieta event uses the LOMAP velocity model package for Northern California. One important consideration is the time it takes to run some of these validation simulations. This is especially true for the GP, and SDSU methods, which may take up to 72 hours to run each of them. In these cases, it is recommended that the output of the platform is redirected to a log file:

$ cd comps
$ ./run_bbp.py -l ~/northridge-gp-log.txt
Welcome to the SCEC Broadband Platform.
Please select the modules you want to run.
Do you want to perform a validation run (y/n)? y
Do you want to validate with:
(1) Loma Prieta
(2) Northridge
? 2
Choose a Method to use in a Broadband validation simulation:
(1) GP (Graves & Pitarka)
(2) GP Seis (GP precomp seismograms)
(3) UCSB
(4) SDSU
(5) SDSU Seis (SDSU precomp seismograms)
(6) EXSIM
(7) Composite Source Model (CSM)
(8) Irikura Recipe (Irikura)
? 1
Do you want to run a rupture generator (y/n)? y
Do you want to provide a custom source file (y/n)? n
Do you want to
(1) run all validation stations
(2) select a custom station list
? 1
Do you want to run the site response module (y/n)? y
Do you want to plot velocity seismograms (y/n)? y
Do you want to plot acceleration seismograms (y/n)? y
Do you want to generate a GMPE comparison plot (y/n)? y
Choose a Goodness of Fit (GOF) Module:
(1) GP
(2) SDSU
(3) Both
(4) None
? 1
^Z
[1]+  Stopped                 ./run_bbp.py -l ~/northridge-gp-log.txt
$ bg
[1]+ ./run_bbp.py -l ~/northridge-gp-log.txt &

Note that after selecting the GOF module, the simulation starts and the user puts the process in background by hitting "CTRL-Z" and then typing 'bg' at the shell.

Update Build Version

Starting with the Broadband Platform 13.6.1 release, the version of the main BBP source distribution and the versions of validation events and velocity model packages are independent. To update the version of the BBP source distribution, just edit the comps/version.txt file.

In order to update the version number of one or more velocity model/validation package, you will need to edit the corresponding configuration file and edit the version line:

VELMODEL_VERSION = 4-March-2014