If this is your first time connecting to
Asset Framework, AF for short, you may not know
how to get started. Let me show
you have to launch the AF client and connect to your AF
Server. We'll also configure your client's
default AF database and configure a default
data archive since you'll most likely need to pull in some
historical data. Let's start by launching PI
System Explorer, known as PSE for short, to
access the Asset Framework Server. From your
client machine, PI System Explorer is normally
found in your start menu in the PI System folder.
If PI System Explorer isn't already
installed, you may need to start to your PI System
admin or your IT department before proceeding. Or install it
yourself if you have access to the PI Asset Framework client install
kit at OSIsoft tech support downloads and
the rights to install software on your client machine.
Let's use the 64 bit version.
But either version should work for setting up your connections
today. However, in the future if you are
using Notifications 2012, you will need to use the 32
version of PSE since Notifications 2012 is a
32 bit application. Let's go ahead and launch
PI System Explorer.
Its possible that your admin didn't specify a default
AF Server during the installation of
PI System Explorer. If that's the case, this message will
pop up. You will need to click yes to
continue launching PI System Explorer. After clicking yes, the
PI AF Server properties window will come
up. Go ahead and wait there until we get to the section
Connecting to your AF Server. If your PI System admin did
specify a default AF Server,
PSE will try connecting to it automatically. If that
AF Server only contains the configuration database, the
dialogue box here will show up. Go ahead and click no
now since I'll also be showing you where you can
go to create databases at any time. If there
are no databases you have access to
see and you don't have access rights to create a database, you will receive a
slightly different error message as shown
here. If this is the case, you'll need to contact
your PI System admin to get rights to create a new database.
Or to view any of the existing databases.
Now that we are in PI System
Explorer, let's take a look at where we can setup
connections to your AF Server anytime you need to do it in the
future. Click on the database icon in the top left
corner of the screen.
Here you will
see that there are two main sections, an
asset server section and a databases section.
Let's start by configuring
the AF Server first. To do this, click on the ellipsis
to the right of Asset Server.
Here you can see a list of all of the
AF Servers currently configured for your client. The default
AF Server is marked with a checkmark shown here.
This isn't the AF Server I want to
use. So let's add a new one now. You
can click asset server at the top left corner or
right click in the whitespace here and select
add asset server. For those
of you I asked to wait patiently until we
get to the section on connecting to your AF Server, this is where you can jump
back in. Assuming your machine
can resolve the host name of your AF Server, type that in
here. This is the location
where the Asset Framework application service is
running. I'll add a second AF Server to
my client connections by using its hostname. Click
connect to confirm there are no issues
connecting. And then click OK. There are
multiple reasons that the connection could fail. Here are some of the more common ones.
If the hostname is not
resolvable, you may have a DNS error as shown
here. You may need to talk to your PI System admin or your
IT department to determine how to best connect to that
machine. For example, instead using [inaudible]
If the machine
does have a DNS entry on the network but the machine is
turned off, you may come across a
TCP error. A TCP error can also occur
if the AF Server application is not running on the AF Server
machine. If you try connecting to the
server and it prompts for credentials,
you can try typing in your Windows credentials since AF
uses Windows Integrated Security. After three attempts,
you may get the following error. This is most
likely because the user logged into Windows and their credentials you
typed in do not have permissions on the
AF Server. You will likely need to talk to your PI System
admin to get permissions to the
AF Server. Assuming you were able to connect
successfully, let's make this our default AF Server
by right clicking and selecting set as
default AF Server. Now that we've
configured our default AF Server, let's create a new
AF database and configure it
as our default database.
Depending on the security of your server,
you may be able to see the configuration database and
any other databases all stored in this AF Server. For
example, I can see both the configuration database and a
database called My First Database. We
highly recommend that the configuration database is not
set as your default database as shown here with the
black checkmark. Click the new
database icon at the top left corner
or right click in the whitespace and select new database.
Type in a name
and click OK.
I would like to make this my default.
So I'll go ahead and right click on it and select set as
default database. We've now
configured our default AF Server
and the default AF Database.
As you start working in AF, you will
likely need to access PI Tags which means you'll need
access to the data archive.
To configure the connection to your data archive, go to
file, connections. Here you will
see the list of asset servers that we
configured earlier but also data archives. During
the installation of AF Client on your machine,
it was required that a default data archive
was specified and you can see it here.
You can add any other data archives that you would like
to access by clicking add data server or
right clicking in the whitespace and selecting
add data server. In this case, let's add
a second PI Data Archive.
Click connect to test the
connection and then click OK.
Let's also make it the
default data archive so that the next time
you search for tags in AF, it defaults to this data archive.
If you'll be using an existing
AF database, the client will automatically try connecting
to any data archives needed to retrieve data, even
if they haven't yet been configured here.
As a note, you can also manage your list of AF Servers
here. All through
PSE, we've configured your default AF Server
and created an AF Database and
set it as the default database and specified
a default Data Archive. Now that we were
connected to the AF Server and Data Archive through PI System
Explorer, we are ready to get started building your Asset Framework
structure.