The PI PING Interface.
The PING Interface will simply measure the intensity of network connections
by sending and measuring standard
ping requests. This can be really helpful
in either defining where your network is slower
even when a device is down.
In ICU there is only one parameter that is
interface-specific -- the time map:
by default, set to three seconds; can accept
values up to one hour, 3600
seconds. In the .bat file that corresponds
to slash to. By an ICU
as you can see here, if you want to change the
default of three seconds, you simply check this check-box
and then enter your number of seconds. This can be
useful on a slower network where you already
know you will receive ping times higher than three seconds.
You can figure ping tags.
All numerical types are accepted.
You can simply use Float 32 which is the most
popular one. The PointSource
should be set to whatever character you specified in
ICU. By default, the PointSource for PI
Ping is J. The most important
field in this interface is InstrumentTag.
This is where you specify the hostname
or IP address to be pinged.
Then we recommend setting the Step
Attribute to ON or one, the
Span to 10,000, the EngineeringUnits
to ms, or whatever abbreviation
of milliseconds you can think of.
As for Location Codes, Location1
is always the one where the Interface
ID Number is specified.
Remember, in the previous chapter, we talked
about Location4 which should be set
to one of the scan classes that is specified in the
Interface. Location
five here determines whether debugging is enabled or not.
This will send more messages
in the Log File. And, finally,
Location2 and 3, which are optional,
are to determine the number of PING
requests to send, and the minimum number
of valid PING replies before to calculate
an average and archive it.
Let me show you how you would configure a PING tag
in the PointBuilder Plug-in in System Management
Tools. System Management Tools can be opened
from the Start Menu. Start Menu,
Programs, PI
System, System Management Tools.
When open, you can simply go to
Points and PointBuilder
where you type a name for your tags,
something like PING and then the name of
the device you ping, MailServer2,
for example.
PointSource should be, should be set to J,
because J is the one we set
in ICU
in the General tab. You see,
this was in the previous chapter.
Back to PointBuilder --
PointSource was set to J.
Engineer Units are ms.
Then we go on the
Classic tab so we can set Location
Codes. Location1
is the Interface ID Number.
Again, back to ICU.
I can see my Interface ID Number is
one. So, Location1
is set to one.
Location4 should be set
to the number of the scan class you want to use.
Back to ICU. We can see
we have two scan classes. Do you want to scan
for your Mail Server's response time every one minute
or every five minute? One
or two? Let's say every
one minute -- scan class number one.
In the last required field, for the PI PING
tag is Instrument tag
where you should put the IP address or the name of
the device to ping. Something like
192.168.0.122.
When this is done,
you can simply click on Save,
and then up to two minutes
the Interface will monitor for
PIPoint changes. And then see this tag?
After it picked up the tag,
something requested a server and then archived
the results. So a quick recap
of tag reconfiguration --
Some Name, Engineering Units,
PointSource J,
ID Number in Location1,
ScanClass Number in Location 4, and
the IP address or the host name in Instrument Tag.
When done figuring PI PING Tags,
the Extended Descriptor, ExDesc
field contains additional settings
to determine behavior of tags.
You could consult interface-specific documentation to
know more about that. But as
an example, you could in ExDesc. as
OutAddr equals
some IP Address. That would
tell the PI PING Interface to use this specific
network card when two or more of them
are on the same subnet.
In addition to this setting, you can
determine the size of the PING packet to send.
So you could use DataSize equal
Number of Bytes. In order to change
the default of 48 Bytes of
random data sent in PI PING Interface.
Again, you should consult
PING Interface Documentation to know more about all the settings
you can use in PING tags.
For those of you who have access to the regular
IT Monitor Class Manual, as well as a PI PING Interface,
you could go for Exercise #12.