Now here's a computer in which we've installed the PI AF
Client, and I'm going to go ahead and run the PI System Explorer
to connect to the PI AF Server. I'm going to do this
for the first time. And, normally, when you run this you're going to connect
to the Default AF Server. that's the Default you specified
when you installed the AF Client. I actually removed
that Default, so right now the PI System
Explorer doesn't know what to connect to. You may see this every once
in a while or you may see this if all your Servers have been removed.
So, let me just show you how this works. I'll go ahead and say Yes. I'm going to
define a New Server. This is how you would
connect to a new AF Server as well,
if, even if you already got a connection to your Default.
So, I'm going to go in here, and I need to specify the name
of the AF Server. If you take a look at this
balloon help here, that's what we're specifying -- the AF Server.
Now the AF Server in this case -- let me just refresh your memory
here. Our AF Server's going to be
a , the, a separate computer from this computer right
here. It's a computer that's called
NICKGX280.
And, you can actually put the IP Address in here
if you prefer, or a fully qualified domain name,
if you need to. And that's the AF
Server, the Default AF Server that I
specified when I first installed this. Now there are other
AF Servers, and I'm later going to demonstrate how to do that,
how to connect to a different AF Server
and just do a little bit of -- I'll show you some of the networking
that's going on. So, let's do that right now. Let's finish up our
connection just to show that we can do it, just to show you what this looks
like. And then we'll go back and look at details and see exactly what's
happening here, what's connecting, what credentials it's
using, etc. Now this account
you're being prompted for here is the name of
the Windows Account that the AF
Server is going to use in order to connect
to the SQL Server Database in which
your PI AF Server
is storing all of its information. Again, we'll go over this
more, and I'll draw a little diagram. But, in my instance
what I did is I set up a User. This is a
Windows User. I just called him myUser. And this
Windows User is the User that's granting the AF
Server privileges to get
access to SQL Server to store things.
I'll go ahead and connect.
And we're prompted to go ahead and save our changes.
And, there we go.
Looks like it's connected properly.
And, here's the
big finish. We're now looking at --
and if I go over here into the Database Option
let's look at what
we've actually just done here. I've configured a
connection to this System right here, this
PI AF Server in this case. We call it
PI System. The PI System actually contains many different Servers.
One of those is the PI AF Server.
So, there we go. Looks like it's done correctly, been done
correctly. I can choose different AF Databases.
There happen to be two that I created plus
the Configuration one that always shows up within
AF. And, so,
this is now the hierarchy that I'm interested in.
Let's look at exactly what we're doing here
though because we went through that kind of quickly.
Let's first let's just draw a picture of exactly what we're connecting
to here. So, what we just saw,
what we saw was a Windows
Client. So this Client computer,
this is a little PC. It is running
a copy of, let's call this, this is the PI System
Explorer. So, let's just mark that as the PI
System Explorer. That
Ex...PI System Explorer Application, that is your primary
interface to looking at everything inside
the AF Server from
a manager's point of view. You'll notice we also have,
there could be other Clients in this network running ProcessBook or DataLink
and they'll get access to AF as well. But it's the PI System
Explorer that we're using for management purposes.
So that's connected to this network and there's
a Server out here that's also on this network.
This is your AF Server. Let me go ahead and
represent this by a box old box. It's labeled
simply AF. Now that, that's the connection
we're attempting to make here. That's a Server that's out on
this network. Now, when
I'm initiating this connection, that connection
is going to be made using credentials that are completely Windows
oriented, or the Windows Integrated Security.
By that, what I means is the connection from
PI System Explorer, and specifically the AF
SDK, our Software Development Kit, that
is used for AF, or with AF,
that AF SDK is using Windows Communications
entirely to connect from this computer right
here over to the AF Server.
Now, and that AF Server, as you
saw,in my case, I used a Windows User called myUser.
That AF Server is actually
configured such that that, it's
that Windows user that has
been granted the log-on
right for the AF Server to actually
connect to the SQL Server Database.
Well, now, I've introduced a brand new computer, another
computer. Let's talk about that.
If you recall, AF is actually storing all of its information
in SQL Server. So I've got a separate box here --
could be running on the same computer, but generally, it's a separate
computer. And on this SQL Server box
everything that's done within AF, you know,
all the little configuration changes. Let's say somebody adds a
few Elements over here. Those Elements that are added
here -- it's through AF, this AF
Server, that we write those Elements to store
permanently. And we actually write those in SQL Server.
I guess it's oversimplifying it to think of SQL Server as just
kind of a storage medium for AF, but that's
essentially how we treat it. You know, unless you're the manager
who has to back all this up, you can really treat
SQL Server like it's a Black Box. One
thing, though, you do have, to be able to do in this
situation is, this computer right here,
it needs some ability to connect to this
computer over here. So, you know, how is that
connection going to be made? Well,
if I can bring up my, let me bring up my
Servers here. I'll show you how that connection was made in this
instance. I've switched over now to my
AF Server, and if we take a look at the Services
Applet in the AF Server -- let me take a look at the Properties
of this PI AF Server
Service -- what you'll see is that
I have specified that we're going to use this log-on,
or we're going to log on as the User called
myUser. That's a local Windows User that
I, I actually, I could use a domain User or a local Windows User as
long as that local Windows User has the same username and password
on the other computers involved in the --
in this case on the, the SQL
Server machine. So, this is going to be
using the privileges of myUser.
Well, what good does that do? you might ask. Well, let's
go take a look at what privileges that User has
over on -- this is going to be the SQL Server
Box. So, let's take a look at the computer that's running
SQL Server, the SQL Server that's storing all these
things for AF. If I go out here
to my Administrative Tools -- this is
my SQL Server Box -- and we open
up Computer Management, we'll be able to look at what the Users
and the Groups look like on this machine.
And, if I go into the Groups -- let me minimize
this -- if I go into the Groups, we can
see that there is a Windows Group,
a Security Group, called AF Servers.
And, here's our big finish. That local User -- this
now, now it's a local User on this Computer, this
SQL Server Box -- that User is a
member of the AF Servers. And, as you can see, the AF Servers
Group is a Group that's specifically set up to
allow access to the AF SQL Database.
That was something we set up during the installation
of the AF SQL Database for
PI AF. So, do you see how, how that all
fits together? If I go out again to my PI
System Explorer, we take a look at that
AF Server -- here's the AF Server that we defined --
if we take a look at its Properties,
we have configured this such that it's
using the Account called myUser. Okay. myUser
is the Account that grants the AF Server access to the SQL
Server Database. Now that
maps directly over to -- let me close out of this
and look at the AF Server.
AF Server has been configured to
log on to -- it's basically connecting to
other machines and being granted the privileges
of myUser. And, the grand finale to
this is back here on this
SQL Server Box.
Again, we have AF Servers
which grants myUser the privileges that are
required to write to SQL Server.