Stan,
I certainly respect your decision to go on your own here, but please let me
add my two cents on each of your points. I'm trying hard not to sound like
a LogMate salesman, but we have it here, and it's a no-brainer as far as
setup and support. Anyway:
1. LogMate supports ANY serial RS-232 communication from ANY system.
If your systems print out to a serial printer, LogMate can read it.
2. You only need one license of LogMate for each DCS system you are
hooking up to, as long as each individual DCS system is networked to itself,
such as Foxboro, Honeywell, A/B, etc. Locations don't really matter. Of
course, if you have islands of each DCS all over that aren't networked to
each other, this becomes more expensive. Worst case is you have 25 separate
DCS systems that aren't networked at all. Then you need (1 x $4000) + (12
x $2000), which is $28,000 worth of licenses. Chances are, it is less than
that, because at least one of your DCS's are networked together somehow.
For example, our I/A system has 2 nodes connected by a LAN, so I only needed
1 license for the whole system. LogMate requires a Pentium 90 to run and
can run on Windows 95/98/NT. If you don't have at least Win95, you can
upgrade the PC for about $50. I would think implementing any system at all
would require at least these specs. If you are attempting to collect data
on a Pentium-60 DOS machine and feed it to a relational database that is
web-enabled, you are a better man than I, Gunga Din.
3. LogMate is not web-enabled, but since it stores the messages in a
Paradox database, you should be able to use readily available tools to
extract the data and create a web-based viewer. TiPS even supplies a
Paradox database engine for Windows for free on their web site if you don't
have one.
4. As far as lifetime support goes, I'd still rather bet on a software
company that knows what it is doing and has a fairly large installed base
than attempt to create my own custom solution. TiPS dates back to 1988, and
has been a first-class company to deal with whenever I have dealt with them.
I see what you are saying about source code, but who is to say that an
engineer working 25 years from now will be able to debug a program in C++ or
Perl, or even Visual Basic? These languages might be as dead as Latin then.
You might be the only one around who can figure it out, if they can find
you.
To me, LogMate is a "killer app" for doing what it does. I have yet to see
anything close to it for ease of use, price, and options. But like Dennis
Miller says, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: Stan Brown [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2000 9:34 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Alarm Formats
On Fri Dec 29 08:55:15 2000 Lowell, Tim: wrote...
>
>Stan,
>
>Here's my best guess as to the breakdown of the Alarm messages:
>
Thanks so much! That's exactly what I needed.
If I can help you with anything UNIX related, PLEASSE let me
know.
As to why not use Logmate, here are at least some of the
reasons.
1. This project is to handle input from many more systems
that just IA (AB
Flame safety systems, Fox iA, Sectrum etc.)
2. We will be deploying this system eventualy in perhaps as
manyas 20 to 25
locations. We will be reuseing PC's that the IS group has
taken out of service
as to old, and slow to run any flavor of Windows (ealrt
Pentium machnines)
3. We will be able to provide web based access to these
alrams via a CGI script
for the operations suspervisors, and ODBC access to our
process control
engineers.
4. Systms in our mill tend to live rather long lives, often
extending beyond
the life of comercial software providers. This makes it very
dificult to
maintain these systems, since we dont have access to the
source code, and the
vendor is no longer in businees, or no longer supports the
product we have.
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