In this video I'll be answering the question, what is
the PI Interface for RDBMS? I'll give some
examples where you'd want to use this PI Interface.
I'll explain the data source requirements
and finally I'll go over the steps for how to start collecting data.
So what's the PI Interface for
RDBMS? It's a PI Interface that collects
data from Relational Database Management Systems.
Common examples include the Microsoft SQL Server,
Oracle database and IBM
DB2. The full name is actually
the PI Interface for Relational Database
RDBMS via ODBC meaning it can collect
data from any RDBMS that has an ODBC
driver. Some of you might be thinking
RDBMS, ODBC, what is all of this stuff?
Let's start with what is a relational
database?
First a database is just a collection of data that is
organized. A relational database
is data that's organized in tables which
have relationships. Let's see an example. Say
we have a database that contains manufacturing
data, the database contains a table called
Material Lots which tracks the batches of products produced.
It also has a table called inventory which
tracks where the batches are stored and products
with all the different product numbers and names.
As we can see, the columns in one table often correspond
to a column in another table.
So these tables have relationships that link them,
making this a relational database.
A relational database management system or RDBMS
is simply the software that you use to create and
manage this type of database.
So what kind of data would you want to collect from a relational
database? We know that PI Interfaces collect
time series data and send it to the PI Data Archive.
So really we could collect any data from a RDBMS
where the time is important. Here are some
common examples. You can collect data
from a manufacturing execution system. For
example you could collect the time where specific batches of
product were produced like the batches of dairy products
we saw above. You could collect
data from a laboratory information management
system such as the results of lab tests related to your process.
You can collect data from
an enterprise resource management system such as financial
data related to your product at any given
time. And finally although less common, you
can also use the PI Interface for RDBMS
to write data from a PI Point back to an RDBMS.
For example you could write production totals
back into your manufacturing database.
So how does this single PI Interface collect data from all of these
systems? As we mentioned the PI
Interface can collect data from any RDBMS
with an OBDC driver. OBDC stands for
Open Database Connectivity. This is simply
a standard way of communicating with
Database Management Systems. An OBDC
driver is just a software component that does the
talking. This driver needs to be installed
on the computer where you'll be installing the PI Interface
for RDBMS. Alright, now that
you know the basics, what are the steps for setting up a
PI Interface for RDBMS? First you'll
want to install the PI Interface for RDBMS and
the PI Interface Configuration Utility. We recommend
that you install these components on a dedicated
company, so not on the PI Data Archive or on the RDBMS Server.
Then you'll want to configure and
run an instance of the PI Interface and configure buffering.
Then you'll need to choose a data retrieval
strategy for your PI Points. You can use the
single tag strategy, tag group strategy,
or tag distribution strategy.
Next you'll need to build your SQL queries.
SQL stands for Structured Query Language
and is the language that PI Interfaces use to ask the
RDBMS for data. The final step is to
create your PI Points. Each of these topics
will be covered in the videos in this playlist.
One final note is that throughout the rest of the
playlist, the term PI Server will be used to
refer to the PI Data Archive.