Now, we have seen the Interface Configuration Utility
a little earlier in that long, long demo that
showed you from beginning to end every single step in
creating an Interface. Anyway, that was kind of going
through as, as fast as I could to get through all
the steps without really spending a lot of time on any one
step. So, now, we are going to start going into these things in much more
detail. And so, the first topic is Interface Configuration
Utility. The first step for, you know, setting up an Interface.
So, let me just explain what this is. Of course, Interface
Configuration Utility, as you may have seen already, it's for
easily configuring and maintaining interfaces
without having to know a lot about how
that Interface Start-up Script works. See,
we are, we are actually storing these switches -- these start-up
switches that are are associated with each interface, we
actually store those in two different places. We
store them, first, in the Module Database. This is the PI Module
Database on the Server. And then, we also store this information
in a batch file that's associated
with that interface. So, if you take a look at this OPC
Interface, opcint1.bat, that's where we are
storing the Configuration Parameters you see right here.
We are storing it there, and, as I said,
if we switch over to our, our Home Node here --
if I go into the Module Database --
you will find it's in a reserved
section of the Module Database that's reserved just for OSI
stuff under Interfaces.
There it is. There's opcint and here are some of the,
you know, the, all the different switches like, for example,
the different Scan Classes -- remember we can configure
our own Scan Classes -- toward the end there;
30-second with a zero-second offset. Anyway,
so that's where we store it in the Module Database. That's not
terribly pertinent to this discussion. I just wanted
to tell you that's where we are storing it, just to be thorough
here. So, we store that there. And we typically ask you not to
touch anything in the Module Database under Percent,
OSI. Now, back to this
Interface Configuration Utility. It's
used for managing what is in this
Start-up Batch File. Now, this is a batch file
that, if you never, ever modify
it using Interface Configuration Utility, you, you could do all this
yourself. But, as we warn you at the very top of this,
once you start editing it using ICU, we
suggest you do not ever edit it manually at that
point. Now, the Interface Configuration Utility
is normally located on the same computer that's
running the Interface. I should not say normally located,
it's always located on that same computer. Sometimes
people try to configure an
Interface remotely by, you know, like specifying
locations using UNC
references. It kind of looks like it works, but it
just does not work. So, do not ever, do not ever try
configuring ICU remotely. You have to put
ICU on the machine that's running the Interface.
Okay. Now, it's going to be doing
a variety of things in addition to setting up those
start-up files, those start-up switches. This is also
where you can go to configure buffering.
This is where you would go to
create any monitoring tags. There are
some tags that you can create -- it's under here, called
the IO RateTags, and the Interface Status Tags.
These are things that you can do with Interface
Configuration Utility. Create tags that will monitor the
performance of the Interface. This is where you could
install the Interface to run as a service if it's not already running
as a service, through this Service Tab here. It's where you can set up
Dependencies. This is also where you can find
the Log Files associated with this local Interface
and, and other Interfaces that are local.
It's where you can also create new instances of
an Interface. If you have an Interface that's running and you want
to create a second instance of it, you can actually create that
and generate this to run as a service, a second copy of the
Interface running at the same time. Now, I am going to go ahead and
demonstrate how to create a new instance of an Interface and
associated that with, that with Interface Configuration
Utility. I will choose Interface, and then I have
a choice of how I create a new Interface. I can either do it from a batch
file or from an executable. Now, I like using
the batch file simply because, historically, that's kind
of where we started with this. We suggested you open the batch
file. Each of our Interfaces does have a batch
file that ships with the, with the Interface, and
what I am going to do here is add a copy
of the Random Interface. See, this Random Interface
ships with random.bat and it's where we
configure such things as what the Default Point
Source should be for that Interface. Now, just in passing,
I want to point out that it's very
unusual to do what I am doing right now -- put the Random Interface
on a second Node, on an Interface Node, and use it
remotely. And, I am not even going to go all the way through.
You know, your Random Interface is just something we keep
on the Server for generating data for training or,
or simulations of one type or another for your own personal
use. I am just using this because
I have already used the one Interface that we are using for real,
that OPC Interface. I have already done that on this Node.
And, I do not want to give you the impression -- I, I do not want
to go do this on the Pi Server because
I do not want to give you the impression that you use ICU on the Server
a lot. Typically, ICU is going to be used
on the Interface Node. So, having
said that, let's go ahead and just, just for
the sake of demonstrating how to do it, let's go ahead and
set up an instance of the Random Interface being managed by
ICU on this Remote Node. So,
I would choose Interface. I will choose New
from a batch file, and as you can see,
we go out, we interrogate where the Interface's Directory is, we find
it. I am going to find Random. I will choose this
batch file, and
the first thing it's doing here, it's checking to see
if the Server in the batch file matches
any Server that's in the Known Servers Table, and if it does not,
well, you can choose one of two things. You can either add the Server
or you can substitute what's in the batch file for
this right here, your actual Server. I am, I am going to choose to do that.
That's typically what you would do.
And, here we have it. This is an Interface
that's been identified as the Random Interface.
This is the type of Interface it is. It's
taking the Default Point Source of "R"
and it's got the Default Scan Classes that we normally
associate with this Random Interface.
So, at this point, if it has not already saved automatically,
I can go ahead and save it, and then I can
start managing this Interface from here. So,
there we go. I can go ahead and add new Scan Classes if I want,
and do all the other things I would do to manage this
Interface. Now, I did this by creating
an Interface from the batch file.
Let's take a look at what we would do if we wanted to choose
that other option, which is to do a new Interface from the
Executable. Now, from the Executable, you are going to notice
a couple of the standard things are not going to be
done by default. We do not pull in the Point Source, for example,
because we do not know what that is. But what I will do is
I will go ahead and, I chose new Executable. I am
going to Browse, again, through the Interfaces Directory.
This time I am going to go to this Interface here. This is another one
of our Simulators, the rmp_sk Simulator. We will find
that Executable and
at this point we need to specify what the Home Node is,
or what the PI Server we are sending this data to, is,
because there is no batch file. We do not know what the default is.
It's, it's not been specified. Now,
at this point, we can go ahead and specify
other things like what should the name
be displayed as? What should the Point Source be?
Interface ID? We will talk about, more about these things later on.
But, I am just going to go ahead and add this without those
things. It says we are, we are being,
we are being reckless here. I have not specified a Point Source.
So, I will go ahead and specify it.
And now, having done all that, now
we are ready to go ahead and configure this Interface.
And, I guess the first thing I should do is actually put in a Point Source.
The Point Source is 9. That's the Default Point Source
for that Interface.
So this is now an, an Interface that's been
defined using that Executable instead of the batch file.
I will go ahead and save it.
I am going to need to create some Scan Classes. I may
need to specify an Interface ID. It depends on the Interface
Configuration. As you can see, this is truly
a brand new one. Without that batch file, we do not pick up
any existing Scan Classes. Now, again,
just a reminder. This last two Interfaces
that we configured, the Random and the rmp_sk. -- these are just for
demonstration purposes. I wanted to show you what it was like starting
a new Interface, managing an Interface, by loading
a batch file vs just, you know, pointing
to the Executable. For the rest of our
videos, we are going to be concentrating on this OPC Interface.