Online Testbench for LHCb High Level Trigger Validation

The High Level Trigger (HLT) and Data Acquisition (DAQ) system selects about 2 kHz of events out of the 40 MHz of beam crossings. The selected events are consolidated into files on an onsite storage and then sent to permanent storage for subsequent analysis on the Grid. For local and full-chain tests a method to exercise the data-flow through the High Level Trigger when there are no actual data is needed. In order to test the system as much as possible under identical conditions as for data-taking the solution is to inject data at the input of the HLT at a minimum rate of 2 kHz. This is done via a software implementation of the trigger system which sends data to the HLT. The application has to simulate that the data it sends come from real LHCb readout-boards. Both simulation data and previously recorded real data can be re-played through the system in this manner. As the data rate is high (100 MB/s), care has been taken to optimise the emulator for throughput from the Storage Area Network (SAN). The emulator can be run in stand-alone mode or run as a pseudo-subdetector of LHCb, allowing for use of all the standard run-control tools. The architecture, implementation and performance of the emulator will be presented.