RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade
You should give consideration to moving to AIM*. It contains migration utilities that preserve the customer's data and configuration information. Regards, Alex Johnson 10707 Haddington Houston, TX 77043 713.722.2859 (office) 713.722.2700 (switchboard) 713.932.0222 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Bertollini, Paride [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 7:54 AM To: Foxboro DCS Mail List (E-mail) Subject:Legacy Historian Upgrade Hi, Is anyone of you already experienced with an upgrade of a Legacy historian? Customer needs to make larger his historian, from 500 to 1000 points without loosing his preexisting configuration. Do the saveh50 and loadh50 utilities allow this? Step by step: -saveh50 -recommit with new historian size(same name) -loadh50 is this possible or is it enough?I've looked on Helpful hints, CARS, but i've not found documents about this. Thank you in advance. Paride Bertollini Invensys Foxboro Italia Customer Service Dept. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to your application of information received from this mailing list. To be removed from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe foxboro in the Subject. Or, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to your application of information received from this mailing list. To be removed from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe foxboro in the Subject. Or, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade
And now a customer perspective... Pros of AIM*Historian: 1. You can modify it while it is running. 2. You can run it on the NT platform as well as AW51, and you can set up remote collectors on both NT and Unix platforms. 3. Much better archiving and storage tools. 4. Reasonably clean Windows NT interface (with some annoying little quirks) as well as the usual bulk command line interface. Cons of AIM* Historian: 1. It can be an enormous resource hog. Our 6000-points-or-so AIM*Historian runs on an AW51E, 256 MB RAM, a 9.1 GB hard drive, and we notice considerable sluggishness over the AW51E we have that doesn't run AIM*Historian. The Legacy Historian is no slouch hogging up resources also of course, but I can recall a few years back at another site running a similar number of points on an AW51C with a 1.2 GB drive without many problems. 2. Could be a cost issue for some companies. And the AIM*Suite utilities (AIM*Datalink, et. al.) don't buy you much over the ODBC interface you can already get with the Legacy Historian. AIM*Datalink is a woefully inadequate product. The only thing we use it for here is the DDE interface so that we can link AIM*Historian real-time data to our Excel Visual Basic sheets. Otherwise, no one uses it because it is cumbersome and requires intimate knowledge of how the I/A system is put together, which our process engineers don't have. 3. You must have at least one Windows NT workstation or server on the network to configure it. It cannot be configured from Solaris except with the command line interface, which is great for bulk edits but cumbersome for small changes. This could be a problem for sites not running Windows NT. 4. Unlike Legacy Historian, no tools are provided for extracting real-time data into tabular or text format with AIM*Historian by itself. There is an Excel add-in, which is only somewhat helpful, but you must buy the whole AIM*Suite to get it. If you want any sort of customization at all, you must create your own tools using C or Visual Basic. If you happen to know or want to learn C or VB, that's great, but if you don't know it or don't have time to learn, you'll have to spend more money to hire someone who does. You could also buy the Foxboro Canada report package, which also works with the Legacy Historian. We have AIM*Historian here, and I would never want to go back to the Legacy Historian, despite the myriad of problems we have had with issues mostly related to the remote collector we set up. We bought the whole AIM*Suite as a small part of a huge project, we have NT here, and I happen to know a little VB, so the cons are not an issue here, but they may be for some sites. The fact that you can modify it while it is running is a big enough pro for me to recommend it, especially to sites where historian uptime is a big deal, like a refinery. Tim Lowell Control Systems Engineer Phillips Petroleum Company, Trainer Refinery Phone: 610-364-8362 Fax:610-364-8211 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Johnson, Alex (Foxboro) [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 9:25 AM To: Foxboro DCS Mail List Subject:RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade You should give consideration to moving to AIM*. It contains migration utilities that preserve the customer's data and configuration information. Regards, Alex Johnson 10707 Haddington Houston, TX 77043 713.722.2859 (office) 713.722.2700 (switchboard) 713.932.0222 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to your application of information received from this mailing list. To be removed from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe foxboro in the Subject. Or, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade
Re: Loading The load is proportional to the number of changes and the update rates. What is your setting for fastest_rsr in /opt/fox/ais/bin/foxapi.cfg? This controls how often updates are sent from the CP to the historian. How do you change deltas now compare with the ones then? Re: You must have at least one Windows NT workstation or server on the network to configure it. It cannot be configured from Solaris except with the command line interface, which is great for bulk edits but cumbersome for small changes. This could be a problem for sites not running Windows NT. The Solaris Configurator is available and has been for a few months. Re: no tools are provided for extracting real-time data into tabular or text format with AIM*Historian by itself The I/A Series Report Writer is available. Regards, Alex Johnson 10707 Haddington Houston, TX 77043 713.722.2859 (office) 713.722.2700 (switchboard) 713.932.0222 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Lowell, Tim: [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 9:07 AM To: 'Foxboro DCS Mail List' Subject:RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade And now a customer perspective... Pros of AIM*Historian: 1. You can modify it while it is running. 2. You can run it on the NT platform as well as AW51, and you can set up remote collectors on both NT and Unix platforms. 3. Much better archiving and storage tools. 4. Reasonably clean Windows NT interface (with some annoying little quirks) as well as the usual bulk command line interface. Cons of AIM* Historian: 1. It can be an enormous resource hog. Our 6000-points-or-so AIM*Historian runs on an AW51E, 256 MB RAM, a 9.1 GB hard drive, and we notice considerable sluggishness over the AW51E we have that doesn't run AIM*Historian. The Legacy Historian is no slouch hogging up resources also of course, but I can recall a few years back at another site running a similar number of points on an AW51C with a 1.2 GB drive without many problems. 2. Could be a cost issue for some companies. And the AIM*Suite utilities (AIM*Datalink, et. al.) don't buy you much over the ODBC interface you can already get with the Legacy Historian. AIM*Datalink is a woefully inadequate product. The only thing we use it for here is the DDE interface so that we can link AIM*Historian real-time data to our Excel Visual Basic sheets. Otherwise, no one uses it because it is cumbersome and requires intimate knowledge of how the I/A system is put together, which our process engineers don't have. 3. You must have at least one Windows NT workstation or server on the network to configure it. It cannot be configured from Solaris except with the command line interface, which is great for bulk edits but cumbersome for small changes. This could be a problem for sites not running Windows NT. 4. Unlike Legacy Historian, no tools are provided for extracting real-time data into tabular or text format with AIM*Historian by itself. There is an Excel add-in, which is only somewhat helpful, but you must buy the whole AIM*Suite to get it. If you want any sort of customization at all, you must create your own tools using C or Visual Basic. If you happen to know or want to learn C or VB, that's great, but if you don't know it or don't have time to learn, you'll have to spend more money to hire someone who does. You could also buy the Foxboro Canada report package, which also works with the Legacy Historian. We have AIM*Historian here, and I would never want to go back to the Legacy Historian, despite the myriad of problems we have had with issues mostly related to the remote collector we set up. We bought the whole AIM*Suite as a small part of a huge project, we have NT here, and I happen to know a little VB, so the cons are not an issue here, but they may be for some sites. The fact that you can modify it while it is running is a big enough pro for me to recommend it, especially to sites where historian uptime is a big deal, like a refinery. Tim Lowell Control Systems Engineer Phillips Petroleum Company, Trainer Refinery Phone: 610-364-8362 Fax:610-364-8211 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Johnson, Alex (Foxboro) [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 9:25 AM To: Foxboro DCS Mail List Subject:RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade You should
RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade
Alex, We have configured most flows to update at 10 seconds, and most everything else to update at 30 seconds, with change deltas of 0.1% of engineering units. I wish there was a way to configure deltas as percent of actual observed range, like the Biles AIM product used to have. That would really be nice. I had never even heard of fastest_rsr until the Connoisseur guys added it to foxapi.cfg, but that of course does not affect AIM*Historian. That would be /opt/aim/bin/aimapi.cfg. Does fastest_rsr also apply there, or is it something different? How does one obtain the Solaris Configurator? Is it part of the you must ante-up some more cash version 3.1, or can I get it for my current version 3.02? I did refer to I/A Report Writer, which I think is the same thing as the Foxboro Canada report package with a different name. Tim Lowell Control Systems Engineer Phillips Petroleum Company, Trainer Refinery Phone: 610-364-8362 Fax:610-364-8211 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Johnson, Alex (Foxboro) [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 10:29 AM To: Foxboro DCS Mail List Subject:RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade Re: Loading The load is proportional to the number of changes and the update rates. What is your setting for fastest_rsr in /opt/fox/ais/bin/foxapi.cfg? This controls how often updates are sent from the CP to the historian. How do you change deltas now compare with the ones then? Re: You must have at least one Windows NT workstation or server on the network to configure it. It cannot be configured from Solaris except with the command line interface, which is great for bulk edits but cumbersome for small changes. This could be a problem for sites not running Windows NT. The Solaris Configurator is available and has been for a few months. Re: no tools are provided for extracting real-time data into tabular or text format with AIM*Historian by itself The I/A Series Report Writer is available. Regards, Alex Johnson 10707 Haddington Houston, TX 77043 713.722.2859 (office) 713.722.2700 (switchboard) 713.932.0222 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Lowell, Tim: [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 9:07 AM To: 'Foxboro DCS Mail List' Subject:RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade And now a customer perspective... Pros of AIM*Historian: 1. You can modify it while it is running. 2. You can run it on the NT platform as well as AW51, and you can set up remote collectors on both NT and Unix platforms. 3. Much better archiving and storage tools. 4. Reasonably clean Windows NT interface (with some annoying little quirks) as well as the usual bulk command line interface. Cons of AIM* Historian: 1. It can be an enormous resource hog. Our 6000-points-or-so AIM*Historian runs on an AW51E, 256 MB RAM, a 9.1 GB hard drive, and we notice considerable sluggishness over the AW51E we have that doesn't run AIM*Historian. The Legacy Historian is no slouch hogging up resources also of course, but I can recall a few years back at another site running a similar number of points on an AW51C with a 1.2 GB drive without many problems. 2. Could be a cost issue for some companies. And the AIM*Suite utilities (AIM*Datalink, et. al.) don't buy you much over the ODBC interface you can already get with the Legacy Historian. AIM*Datalink is a woefully inadequate product. The only thing we use it for here is the DDE interface so that we can link AIM*Historian real-time data to our Excel Visual Basic sheets. Otherwise, no one uses it because it is cumbersome and requires intimate knowledge of how the I/A system is put together, which our process engineers don't have. 3. You must have at least one Windows NT workstation or server on the network to configure it. It cannot be configured from Solaris except with the command line interface, which is great for bulk edits but cumbersome for small changes. This could be a problem for sites not running Windows NT. 4
RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade
We have migrated our legacy historian several times using saveh50 and loadh50. It actually works pretty well. The saveh50 utility unloads the Informix data and table structure to a series of sql scripts and files of ascii data. There is not a lot of interaction once the process starts. It takes quite a bit of time (hours) to unload the database depending on the machine and the amount of data. Be patient while it runs. Before running the loadh50 make sure you have allocated enough space to the informix raw partition. If I remember correctly the default is only 50 Meg. There is a helpful hint HH528 on expanding the raw partition and checking the size of your current partition. Gerry Ries City of San Francisco Water Pollution Control Division 750 Phelps St San Francisco CA 94124 Phone: 415.648.6882 ext. 1256 Fax: 415.648.8420 -Original Message- From: Bertollini, Paride [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 5:54 AM To: Foxboro DCS Mail List (E-mail) Subject: Legacy Historian Upgrade Hi, Is anyone of you already experienced with an upgrade of a Legacy historian? Customer needs to make larger his historian, from 500 to 1000 points without loosing his preexisting configuration. Do the saveh50 and loadh50 utilities allow this? Step by step: -saveh50 -recommit with new historian size(same name) -loadh50 is this possible or is it enough?I've looked on Helpful hints, CARS, but i've not found documents about this. Thank you in advance. Paride Bertollini Invensys Foxboro Italia Customer Service Dept. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to your application of information received from this mailing list. To be removed from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe foxboro in the Subject. Or, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to your application of information received from this mailing list. To be removed from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe foxboro in the Subject. Or, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade
Re: fastest_rsr I believe that parameter of the same name is in the AIM*API file. By default, it forces all updates to 0.5 second scans regardless of the recording rate set in the historian. I suspect that this is most of your load. Re: Obtaining the Solaris Configurator You should contact your acct rep. I don't know what is required to get it, but I do know that it is shipping and useful. Regards, Alex Johnson 10707 Haddington Houston, TX 77043 713.722.2859 (office) 713.722.2700 (switchboard) 713.932.0222 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Lowell, Tim: [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 10:04 AM To: 'Foxboro DCS Mail List' Subject:RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade Alex, We have configured most flows to update at 10 seconds, and most everything else to update at 30 seconds, with change deltas of 0.1% of engineering units. I wish there was a way to configure deltas as percent of actual observed range, like the Biles AIM product used to have. That would really be nice. I had never even heard of fastest_rsr until the Connoisseur guys added it to foxapi.cfg, but that of course does not affect AIM*Historian. That would be /opt/aim/bin/aimapi.cfg. Does fastest_rsr also apply there, or is it something different? How does one obtain the Solaris Configurator? Is it part of the you must ante-up some more cash version 3.1, or can I get it for my current version 3.02? I did refer to I/A Report Writer, which I think is the same thing as the Foxboro Canada report package with a different name. Tim Lowell Control Systems Engineer Phillips Petroleum Company, Trainer Refinery Phone: 610-364-8362 Fax:610-364-8211 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Johnson, Alex (Foxboro) [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 10:29 AM To: Foxboro DCS Mail List Subject:RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade Re: Loading The load is proportional to the number of changes and the update rates. What is your setting for fastest_rsr in /opt/fox/ais/bin/foxapi.cfg? This controls how often updates are sent from the CP to the historian. How do you change deltas now compare with the ones then? Re: You must have at least one Windows NT workstation or server on the network to configure it. It cannot be configured from Solaris except with the command line interface, which is great for bulk edits but cumbersome for small changes. This could be a problem for sites not running Windows NT. The Solaris Configurator is available and has been for a few months. Re: no tools are provided for extracting real-time data into tabular or text format with AIM*Historian by itself The I/A Series Report Writer is available. Regards, Alex Johnson 10707 Haddington Houston, TX 77043 713.722.2859 (office) 713.722.2700 (switchboard) 713.932.0222 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Lowell, Tim: [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 9:07 AM To: 'Foxboro DCS Mail List' Subject:RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade And now a customer perspective... Pros of AIM*Historian: 1. You can modify it while it is running. 2. You can run it on the NT platform as well as AW51, and you can set up remote collectors on both NT and Unix platforms. 3. Much better archiving and storage tools. 4. Reasonably clean Windows NT interface (with some annoying little quirks) as well as the usual bulk command line interface. Cons of AIM* Historian: 1. It can be an enormous resource hog. Our 6000-points-or-so AIM*Historian runs on an AW51E, 256 MB RAM, a 9.1 GB hard drive, and we notice considerable sluggishness over the AW51E we have that doesn't run
RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade
I am familiar with the Legacy Historian but I was recently at a plant where they had the new AIM* Historian. It was installed on a Sun machine. I really like the fact that you can change its configuration without shutting it down. This allowed us to tighten many deadbands specifically for the tests we were running without impacting their normal data collection. There is a GUI configuration program for Solaris and it is not too bad. We had a strange problem trying to enter new deadband number for a few points. For some reason it would not accept the number we wanted to enter. So instead we ended up entering 0.0 which worked. The main thing I didn't like was the data extraction capabilities. It may be that there is a better tool, but the only one I could find was the Data Display function. This is much improved over the same program for the Legacy Historian but it is still a pain to use for extracting a large amount of data. I ended up having to extract 63 separate files to get all the data we needed. It then took me about 6 hours to merge all that data into a single Excel file. On our Legacy system we use a program called ProcIns_extract to extract data and it is much easier to use. I am always amazed that Historian developers and vendors don't include a simple program to extract data to a text file in their base system. Westinghouse has the same problem as Foxboro in this area. Cyrus Taft Chief Engineer EPRI IC Center Harriman, TN --- This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to your application of information received from this mailing list. To be removed from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe foxboro in the Subject. Or, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Legacy Historian Upgrade
Re: foxpai.cfg and fastest_rsr There is a brief description of fastest_rsr in the QF990084 and how you can change it. I have used this variable with FoxAPI. The deafult value is 1 (means 1/2 seconds), every steps means 1/2 sec, i.e., if fastest_rsr = 10, that means 5 seconds. I am not sure if this parameters modify the historian scan rate (neither legacy nor AIM*) Re: Historian Upgrade I don't remenber why, but I think that you can get some problems if you try to just recommit. On version 4.3 we commit the station twice: First remove the historian and then install again with the new size. Regards, Alexander Millan Automation Enginneer PDVSA El Palito Refnery Phone: +58-242-3603461 Fax: +58-242-3604766 *** PDVSA´S INTERNET E-MAIL USE *** This message may contain information solely of the interest of PDVSA or its businesses. Copying, distribution, disclosure or any use of the information contained in this transmission is permitted only to authorized parties. If you have received this e-mail by error, please destroy it and notify [EMAIL PROTECTED] or the sender by reply email. ** USO DEL CORREO ELECTRONICO DE PDVSA HACIA INTERNET ** Esta nota puede contener informacion de interes solo para PDVSA o sus negocios. Solo esta permitida su copia, distribucion o uso a personas autorizadas. Si recibio esta nota por error, por favor destruyala y notifique al remitente o a [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to your application of information received from this mailing list. To be removed from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe foxboro in the Subject. Or, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
