This video will demonstrate an
upgrade of Buffer Subsystem version 4.3 from a
previous version of PI Buffer Subsystem. Before we get
started, let's quickly go over some of the system
requirements. From the PI Live library,
we can see that PI Buffer Subsystem supports both 32 bit and
64 bit client and server Windows operating
systems starting from Windows Server
2003 SP2. Any destination PI Data Archive
Server will need to be version 3.4.375
or later. We always recommend running the latest
version for the best performance. Finally,
if you are configuring buffering for PI API
Interfaces, then you'll need to get
PI ICU version 1.4.15 or
later. If you are configuring buffering for AF SDK or
PI SDK clients, then you'll need PI
AF client 2014 or later or PI SDK 2014
or later. So let's go over
what the current configuration of my
Interface machine looks like.
Within PI ICU, you'll notice that I already have
two PI Interfaces configured and sending data. So
the first instance is writing data to
carbon which is the name of my PI Data Archive collective.
This collective has two
members. The second instance is writing to Graphite
which is the name of an independent PI Data Archive Server.
Keep in mind that this is an upgrade
and this may require the machine to be
restarted or may require service
stoppage time. So please make sure you have either the appropriate downtime scheduled or
you have interface failover configured to minimize
the data downtime during the upgrade.
So let's take a look at the current buffering
configuration.
So once I've opened up
Tools Buffering within PI ICU, we can see that the
current option is to enable buffering with PI Buffer Subsystem.
And then if I go to my
buffering settings, you'll notice that I
have one custom setting here which is to have my
buffer queue files located in this custom
path which is D drive, PiBufss queues.
Within the buffered
servers list, we can see the two members of
my carbon PI Data Archive collective listed here.
So basically any data being written to
my collective is going to be found
and replicated and buffered. The
data that's being sent to Graphite which is my independent
PI Data Archive Server currently is not
buffered. One of the main new features of PI Buffer Subsystem
4.3 is that it can buffer to multiple
servers or multiple PI Data Archive collectives at the same
time. So once I finish the upgrade, I should be able
to buffer my data to Graphite as well.
Finally if we go to the PI
Buffer Subsystem service tab, you'll notice that I have
my PI Buffer Subsystem service actually running under
a custom domain service account. This is to follow
the security best practices.
OK, so let's get the install
kit. The install kit can be
found at our tech support page
at techsupport.osisoft.com
Once your browser is there, you can go to the downloads
page. At the downloads page,
type in PI Buffer Subsystem for the product
name and click search.
Here the results returned. Since I'm going to be
configuring buffering for PI API based interfaces,
the one that I'm going to get is the PI
Interface Configuration Utility Install Kit
version 1.4.16.79A.
OK, so I already have the
install kit downloaded and
saved in my D drive Install Kits folder. So once
I'm there, I'm going to right click the install kit and run as
administrator. It then prompts me for a location to
extract the installation files. So I'm just going to put it into the
same folder.
At the installation
splash screen, I can see that
PI Buffer Subsystem version 4.3 is one of the
modules that will be upgraded.
At this point in the installation, it'll actually warn me
of all of the services that need to be stopped.
As mentioned before, the upgrade may need to stop
your PI Interface services. So please make
sure you have the downtime scheduled or interface failover configured
to minimize your data downtime.
Alright, so
now the upgrade is mostly
finished and we can see that it has started up all of the
services that were stopped during the
upgrade including my two PI
Interfaces.
So the installation is now
complete and on the final splash screen, we can see that PI
Buffer Subsystem has been successfully
installed. OK, so now that
it's successfully installed, the first thing that I want to
check is to make sure that I'm still receiving data
from my PI Interfaces.
So I'm going to open up PI
SMT. I'm going to connect to all three of
my PI Data Archive Servers and use the
current values plug-in to make sure I'm receiving
current data from my PI Interfaces.
So I'm just going to pull up a couple tags that I know
are being written to from the PI Interfaces on this
machine.
And I'm going to update it
and we can see
that on all three
servers, I am indeed getting current
values from the PI Interfaces on this machine.
OK, so the data looks good. But
how do we know that it's actually
buffered? So what we can do is open
PI ICU.
So once PI ICU
is loaded, we can go to Tools,
Buffering. And you'll
notice now that instead of loading the
traditional buffering page within PI ICU,
it opens Buffering Manager. Buffering Manager
is a new GUI tool that's included with PI Buffer
Subsystem version
4.3. This tool is basically a dashboard that shows real-time
health status for all of your PI Data Archive
Servers that are configured for buffering. Additionally,
it's also the central place where you can make all of the configuration
changes for the PI Buffer Subsystem
settings. OK, so on this
initial screen, this is what we call the global level. So
at the global level, I can see that
I've had 8500 total events sent.
So if I had multiple servers here, this would be the total
count across all of my servers. If I wanted to
look at the counters just for my
carbon PI Data Archive collective, I can
click here. Now since I don't have any other PI Data Archive
collectives or servers configured for
buffering, the counter here on this page is going to be
the same as at the global level.
Furthermore, if I wanted to drill down to individual members,
I can do that by selecting the member at the bottom here.
So let's say I wanted to look at the events
sent for carbon 12. So once I'm here,
this is the physical server level
which means it will show the counters just for that individual
PI Data Archive collective member.
So I can see that there has been 5327
total events sent to this carbon 12 member.
So what about my
Graphite Server? Well, before the
upgrade, the Graphite PI Data Archive Server was not configured for
buffering. So after the upgrade, it still is not configured for
buffering. To do this, I can follow
the procedure outlined in the video, Configure PI Buffer Subsystem
for PI API Interfaces. If you
want to configure buffering for additional PI API Interfaces,
please watch that video as
well. So before the upgrade, I pointed out a couple of
custom settings for my PI Buffer Subsystem.
So one of those settings
was the Queue Path. And you'll notice here at the physical
server level, it has retained that Queue Path, so it's
still saved in the D drive, PIBufss queues
directory. The other thing that was customized
about my PI Buffer Subsystem configuration
was that I had the service running under a custom
domain service account. So if I open the services
applet, I can see that that is retained
as well and my PI Buffer Subsystem is still running under the
same customer domain service account.
If you want to configure buffering for additional PI
Interfaces, please watch Configure PI Buffer Subsystem
for PI API Interfaces.