Let's take a look now at the architecture of the PI System through a typical single
site
and then later on we’ll look at multiple sites that go across a whole organization.
So, we'll start here over in the, I guess, the most far flung geographical area are
the data sources.
We'll take a look at the control network, the DMZ,
explain what that is and take a look at how this
is served up in the client applications.
Let me switch over now to our slides
and I'll start as I said by looking at these data sources.
Now, the data sources would be those things in the field that we’re collecting data from
and if we look specifically at things like pumps, valves, etc. now these
temperature transmitters, pressure sensors,
etc., flow meters,
these are the things that are physically connected to the equipment
that you're using.
In the case of things like SCADA systems
you would have
connections to transformers to the different pieces of equipment out in the field for transmission
and distribution
of those things that you manage.
Now, those data sources generally are connected to some kind of a control
system
whether those be programmable logic controllers,
the controllers to SCADA systems or distributed control system
and that's part of what we are
calling here the manufacturing control network.
That would be the highly secure area
of your network in which you don't want anybody but authorized users. This is where you
open and close valves. You can actually do things to your plant
so obviously you only want the most secure,
trusted individuals who have access to that.
Now, compare that to this DMZ.
DMZ the stands for, well it’s an old
military term, demilitarized zone. It is also sometimes known as the data management
zone or demarcation zone
or simply just a permanent network.
The concept is it's an area in your network. It's usually a sub-network,
a logical area or sometimes physically a different network
in which
you're going to take those pieces of information that are
generated back here
in your highly secure network
and you’re going to expose them in a very careful, measured way
to the outside world to the un-secure network, generally the internet.
So, you need to do it very well with, you know, with good firewalls in between
so that so that nothing happens out here, you know, in the wild west here
can actually get in and do anything
on your,
your manufacturing control network. And that’s what the DMZ does. That’s, generally,
where you're going to find the PI System,
the interface nodes, etc.
Those are going to be in your, typically will be in, your DMZ.
Now, once we have that data
on the PI Server we can do analysis to it. This is what do with our analytics tools
things like our notifications, our advanced computing engine,
calculations, notifications, statistical quality control,
trends.
Now those are the types of things that
people are going to be using
to make some sense out of all that data that you're bringing in.
So we have good analytics tools for that. And, of course, the big finish is
once you've
got information that is useful, that’s actionable,
it'll actually improve things in manufacturing
you want to show it to people so
again typically through another firewall you will find
access to that data is done
through the client applications through our rich clients or smart clients applications like
PI ProcessBook and PI DataLink
and others. Also through thin clients like the
RT WebParts
or other, you know, web-based applications
like, for example, the applications that
support the SAP portal
Technology. RT WebParts you may know as PI WebParts
and typically the location of this is going to be out on the corporate LAN
or actually completely out on the internet using good credentials that are piggy-backing
on Windows security you can
expose this to people in a way that's secure
even if they're sitting at home or in an airport.
So far we've been discussing just a single PI System
on a single site.
Now, but remember this is meant to be an enterprise application
and what we typically find is you’ll have many, many different sites involved in this so this
might be one PI site
this over here is another PI site. We've got a third PI site down here.
Now, all of these things can be wrapped up
to be looked at in general across, across the entire organization
using those same PI technologies.
They get the data, you know, from
on a local level here from the data sources to the users.
We can use that same technology to
collect that data into these enterprise servers
and then serve that data out to end users.
Like you see here, the end users can,
excuse me, through the technologies
of our SDK and API and our OLEDB application, which also share that data
to other devices
and other systems that require real-time information.
So, for example,
if you do have a business system that requires
this real time data,
odds are we've got a mechanism either through our OLEDB provider
or some other interfacing.
We have some mechanism for you to get the data in all the way from the shop room floor
into that business system.
And, of course, we support all the other technologies for getting this data out
to people through portal servers, mobile clients, wireless connections, etc.
I don't think this picture would be complete if we didn't mention that in addition
to getting all the data in
from manufacturing and bringing it to the users who need it,
well, these
systems themselves, these enterprise systems,
they do consume a lot of resources and we do have
tools for monitoring those resources.
It’s not unusual at all to see
the customer who’s using PI for monitoring his manufacturing process
also use PI in his data center
so he can monitor things like heat or energy
etc. so he can better run his data center.
In addition, he can reach out and grab
Windows performance counters, SNMPTrap data,
and network traffic, routing information, etc.
from his network, bring that into PI
with a unique set of analysis tools that can get down to the practically to the sub second
level, no averaging necessary here,
and do troubleshooting for his internal resources, his
his server farms, his networks etc.