Section 8.4
PI Interface Configuration Utility.
Finally we get to what I've been claiming
is the easier way of configuring
interfaces, graphical user interface for interface management.
I've been so far talking over and over
again about how you manage the batch file.
And that is obviously its primary purpose. But there is a
whole group of other things that you can do with this. You
can use it to install services,
to view the log files. That's actually one of the more
useful things about that. I don't have to go out to
PIPC.LOG like you saw me in the last exercise.
You can configure the buffering and you can create specific
monitoring tags. But again, primarily
its the managing of the batch file. Setting those switches
in the batch file is really the most useful here.
With ICU, you can either create a new instance
or modify the current configuration.
So let me show you how you would use this or launch this.
But you can launch this within System Management Tools
by choosing Tools, Interface Configuration Utility.
But just so you know, you can
also find this within the Start Menu on its own.
If you go into Start and
then PI System, you can find it listed there as well.
So let me go ahead,
I already have a copy of it running.
So I'm going to switch over to, PI
Interface Configuration Utility or ICU for short.
And you can either build a batch
file from the executable,
or you can edit the existing executable
and that's more typically what people do. Now when I
load this, you'll notice that it is looking for both
.bat and .new files and also .bat_new
We do incorporate as I said,
that new file during upgrades so that we don't
overwrite your existing batch file.
So if I look at my PIPing.bat,
this is an existing
interface that I just configured in my
last exercise. We are going to read the switches,
parse out those switches and then place the specific
things like PointSource and
interface ID into specific fields in
ICU. We are also putting things like the hostname etc.
So we are parsing out the contents, scan classes etc.
And now we've stored that information on the
module database in such a way that other
applications that need that information can now get to it.
Once you've registered an interface with ICU,
that's one of the beauties of storing this centrally.
Other applications like AutoPointSync
for example can make use of that information.
And there are other utilities as well that make use of that
information. Now just so you
know, as I just mentioned earlier,
this is running on the interface node,
on the remote data collection node. However
you do need to have access to that PI Server
so that you can get access to the module database.
And in fact, you need write access to the module database.
Once we make changes and store those
changes. Like for example, if I were to add a brand new
scan class. Let's add a five minute scan class.
I'll go 0, 0 five minute, 0 seconds. And we'll
off-set that zero from the current
time. Once I've made changes and saved those
changes, what you'll notice is that
batch file is no longer going to
be editable. It's going to be
set to read only. I've just gotten a message, let's take a look at what it says.
And it's a nice little warning saying,
by the way, remember that this won't take affect until
the next time you start and restart. I can tell
from this interface that it's already running. If you notice,
there is a stop button because this particular interface is already running.
Now let's look at the file itself.
Here is the file. It has just been
edited and if I look at it,
it looks completely different than before. And we get this warning,
do not edit this file. Also if we look at the properties,
properties are now read only. And that is because
it is currently being managed by
Interface Configuration Utility.
And one final point, within the help menu,
really a very nice feature is it is going to make a
link out to the interface manual. So if you click on
this, it's simply going to go ahead and launch that interface manual
so that you won't have to go out and look for it.