ANTARES is a neutrino telescope project based on strings of Cerenkov detectors in deep sea.
Some 400 detectors are spread over a volume of 3 000 000 m3 at 2000 m underwater, which calls
for a highly distributed, embedded data acquisition system. Based on Commodity Off-The-Shelf
(COTS) low-power integrated processors and industry standards such as Ethernet and CORBA,
the foreseen system is expected to run for 3 years without any direct access to the hardware.
We present the systems performance needs and constraints, and discuss the solutions that were
imagined. We also make a case on the advantages and drawbacks of COTS electronics and software,
and present recommendations on how to use COTS components efficiently in similar projects and
HEP projects in general.
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