Real Time Snapshot Support
PI System Connector: Need real time snapshot data support for the PI System connector.
AdminTodd Brown
(Product Manager, OSIsoft)
shared this idea
This item is under technical review. Currently, support for collecting Snapshot data can be achieved via PI to PI interface and should be considered for achieving this specific functionality.
15 comments
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drhe
commented
It is misleading to brand this product a "PI System Connector" without support for snapshot since it is one of the most fundamental subsystems.
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Josh Duncan
commented
In response to Matthew Bailey, "I had heard the same thing, but I've als..."
Hey Matthew, really? So the System Connector team now plans on supporting snapshots? If they do that, give it a more full featured history recovery GUI, and allow for choosing archive modes then maybe it could replace PItoPI. I was disappointed with several aspects of System Connector but I did see some benefits: One-way firewall rules, seamless PI tag attribute sync, and more resilient to network issues (since using SDK vs API tech). I'm happy they're considering supporting snapshots though, that's vital. -
mbailey
commented
In response to Franz Krauter, "PI to PI in parallel is not a solution. ..."
Couldn't agree more! -
mbailey
commented
In response to Joshua Duncan, "I wouldn't get your hopes up. I received..."
I had heard the same thing, but I've also recently heard they've re considered. -
FranzK
commented
PI to PI in parallel is not a solution. i expect to have one tool to communicate from a local system to a global system. there should be a straight forward way to connect one PI System to another and not different combinations of tools. another reason, the communication from local to global should be secured (it's with the connector, but not with PI to PI). so the connector should be able to:
-communicate historical data based on archive
-communicate snapshots in real-time mode
-full AF/EF support -
mbailey
commented
PI to PI and APS is still not meeting our requirements. While OSIsoft says this is the solution, its not a good one. PI APS processes tags one at a time. Startup time for PItoPI is also slow. APS and PItoPI is not multithreaded. The APS syncing for a large amount of tags is not meeting our need. Because the Connector still does not meet our requirements, we've had to add many (currently 14) interfaces which is very difficult to manage across multiple servers at multiple locations. Anytime we have PI to PI or APS talking to systems at other locations (for disaster recovery) latency causes the startup time and sync times to take hours. Not an acceptable high availability solution.
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mbailey
commented
With 47 votes you would think the folks would listen to what we need. I have not been impressed with how slow this connector has been moving. APS and PItoPI are not working for us. Syncing a collective across a few states, causes latency issues and the sync process takes 24 hours currently.
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Josh Duncan
commented
In response to Matthew Bailey, "We need this as well. We have a project ..."
I wouldn't get your hopes up. I received an update on this on January 4, 2019 from a connectors product specialist at OSI. He reached out to the product manager for System Connector and they have decided not to support snapshot data collection with PI System Connector. On hearing this news my org has decided to remove System Connector and go with PItoPI/APS instead. The PI System Connector seems like a half-baked solution right now. I've heard from OSI that it should not be seen as a PItoPI replacement (see here) but instead should be seen as a solution for migrating AF DB structure from one AF environment to another. However, as of now, System Connector doesn't support migrating Analyses or Notifications. I have to say that System Connector seemed to handle PI tag creation/updates a lot more seamlessly than APS but also there was much less control and customization. With time I'm sure System Connector will become a solid product but seems lacking as of now. -
mbailey
commented
In response to Matthew Bailey, "We need this as well. We have a project ..."
I should add that we have been waiting for the connector to meet these requirements for 4 years!
Essentially we want two collectives ( a source and destination) to be the same.
Requirements
- Send PI data even if it's not in AF.
- Send real-time snapshot data. It seems really useless for us to be able to only send archive data. Users using the destination system don't get the real-time or accurate values? A breaker is closed, but the users see's it open? Not making sense.
- If a tag name is changed on the source collective, it should update on the destination side.
- Should be much faster then PI to PI and APS (multi threaded), should work better across two locations where latency comes to play.
- Should be easier to configure then PItoPI and APS -
mbailey
commented
We need this as well. We have a project on hold until this is done.
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Josh Duncan
commented
I heard that this feature is in the works. Is there a tentative timeline for this? Like everyone else here, I agree that this is a very necessary feature.
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Trent Huhn
commented
Another vote for this functionality. We replicate data from remote site PI servers to a central enterprise server - having snapshot data available here to trigger real-time alarms is critical. Without this functionality, we are unable to implement PI System Connector at this time.
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Laurie Dieffenbach
commented
Another example: One of my customers has a situation where manually entered data or KPIs are calculated on a daily basis, or even hourly. The snapshot value won’t get to our central server till the next hour/day/etc. I don’t think there is a way to force the value to automatically go from snapshot to archive. PI always needs the current value and the previous value to decide if it needs to archive. Therefore, they need the snapshot value to be included in the PI System Connector.
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Fabiano Batista
commented
This idea is very important, Tood. Thanks for sharing.
I would like to mention is a typical use:
- Daily KPIs are calculated at the source system, and they should be available immediately on the destination server as soon as they get calculated in the source.
Unfortunately, with the current implementation of PI System connector, we see a lag of 1 day between the last daily result available in the destination PI System and the one available in the source PI System. One of my customers is having this issue right now. -
fburrows
commented
A must have if replicating to an enterprise server that is then used as the primary source of data for end users.