LPPFusion has completed a major upgrade of our IT infrastructure. This will make it easier to rapidly analyze our data and to share it among ourselves as well as to plan future improvements in our FF-1 device. A number of steps were taken under the supervision of Chief Information Officer Ivy Karamitsos.
First, the data generated by our experiments and processed by Electrical Engineer Fred Van Roessel’s JavaFusion program has been loaded into a database. The database, designed by volunteer and LPPFusion shareholder Hennign Burdack and implemented by Karamitsos, allows researchers to access within seconds whatever sets of data, from  whatever files, they require. Previously data stored in Excel files could take a long time, sometimes impracticably long, to assemble. When the next experiments start, data will be processed after each shot, producing values of basic plasma parameters like ion temperature and density. The processed data will then be fed into the database at the end of each day’s shots, ready for further analysis
Second, with the help of security consultant Tom Heffernan, LPPFusion has built a new powerful network architecture with the latest server and security features available. The server configuration keeps everything and everyone backed up, and provides easy internal sharing of technical data, which will considerably increase productivity and cut down administrative tasks. Equally important, since most security breaches involve some sort of human error, Karamitsos has compiled and circulated a new set of user policies and procedures which have brought our user security awareness higher than ever. If fully adhered to, the combined defensive user driving with the newly hardened IT infrastructure will further enhance the IT system security against social engineering and other online and offline attacks.
