Wonderware ABCIP DAServer 3.0 ReadMe

Last revision: 5/23/05

This document contains important information about the Wonderware® ABCIP DAServer™ 3.0. Please carefully review this document for known issues in this version and changes, if any, to the ABCIP DAServer 3.0 documentation included on this CD.

System Requirements

Installation Information

Known Issues - ABCIP DAServer 3.0

Release Summary

ABCIP DAServer Documentation

 

System Requirements

The ABCIP DAServer 3.0 supports the following Operating Systems:

Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher is recommended on the computer where the product is installed.

Hardware Requirements

To run a DAServer, we recommend as a minimum the following hardware configurations:

ControlLogix Hardware and Firmware

Information on the versions of the Logix5000 firmware supported by the ABCIP DAServer 3.0 can be found in the ABCIP DAServer User's Guide, Appendix A.

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Installation Information

Before installing the ABCIP DAServer 3.0, it is strongly recommended that you exit all FactorySuite™ programs, including executable (.exe) files and services. Detailed installation instructions are included in the DAServer Installation Guide. It is recommended that you read the DAServer Installation Guide prior to beginning the installation process.

In addition to the procedures described in the DAServer Installation Guide, the following installation requirements and other requirements pertaining to the installation and uninstall orders have to be followed.

Installation Requirements

The following installation requirements are prerequisites for the ABCIP DAServer 3.0 to work properly.

Installation Order Requirements

The installation for the DAServers and other Wonderware FactorySuite™ products on the same computer must follow the order as outlined. A DAServer must always be installed last.

This installation order will ensure that any differences, which may exist in the common components included with individual product releases, will install and run without version conflicts. In case of any future patch on the installed Wonderware FactorySuite products, follow the particular installation instructions from the patch.

Uninstall Order Requirements

After installing a DAServer on a computer with other Wonderware FactorySuite products, the following applies:

 

Note: ArchestrA™ products, such as InTouch™ 8.0 or greater, do not require any installation/uninstall order with the DAServers.

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Known Issues – ABCIP DAServer 3.0

Wonderware DAServer Compatibility with Other FactorySuite Products on the Same Computer 

At the time of this release, InTouch, Version 7.11 with Patch 03 or greater, and Wonderware FactorySuite 2000 I/O Servers, previously released with support for Windows 2000 or greater, are the supported Wonderware product combinations on the same computer with the DAServers. Please check the FactorySuite Product version-compatibility matrix at www.wonderware.com/support/mmi to determine if the product-version combination associated with this install is supported.

Non-Wonderware Product Issues

L00021068:

Although Wonderware DAServers can communicate with multiple client protocols at the same time, you should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the technologies used for any particular protocol. For example, the OPC Data Access protocol is based on Microsoft COM/DCOM technology. The DCOM technology has an inherent pinging mechanism that requires six (6) minutes before a DCOM connection is declared as timed-out. As a result, there may be a chance that when the DAServer is connected remotely with an OPC client and the network is interrupted, a delay of six (6) minutes may be experienced in the OPC client program before declaring the connection to the DAServer a failure.

Please note that this is expected; the DAServer remains active and continues to provide data connectivity to other clients that have good network connections. More information on the DCOM pinging mechanism can be found in Sections 2.5 and 2.5.1 of the specifications Distributed Component Object Model Protocol ... DCOM/1.0 from Microsoft.

L00037898:

The following DASProtFail messages in the LogViewer indicate that the Logix5000 controller is running out of memory resources.

·         ExtractStructInfo STS=02: Insufficient resources

·         ExtSTS=011A: Target Application cannot support any more connections

To avoid this problem, please perform one of the following:

·         Try to put fewer tags for updates from the client at the same time.

·         Disable the 'Use ControlLogix Optimization' feature from the affected Logix processor hierarchy node's configuration view of the ABCIP DAServer. 

Installation 

Long Computer Name:

The computer name used by NetBIOS is limited in length to MAX_COMPUTERNAME_LENGTH (for instance, the limitation is 16 characters for Windows NT 4.0). That is why, when installing a DAServer on a computer with a long name (that is, "My_Very_Long_Computer_Name"), you may have issues accessing the DAServer diagnostics.

WWLogger:

After installing this DAServer, the pre-existing WWLogger™ output will be redirected to the new Log Viewer.

First Activation:

When installed on a Windows 2000 operating system, the first time the DAServer is activated, a "server busy" message may appear. Subsequent activation of the DAServer will not produce this message.

Uninstall

L00009971: 

Canceling an uninstallation process may cause the DAServer to be set to "Not a Service" mode if two DAServers are present on the same node.

The DAServer Manager

CPU Utilization:

The DAServer performance may be impaired if the CPU utilization reaches and remains at 100%; the DAServer may then become user-unresponsive. 

Keyboard Navigation:

If using only the keyboard for navigation after starting the DAServer Manager, you will not be able to get to the dialog boxes and other boxes on the configuration view. Also, once in the dialog boxes, using the mouse, you can only move in the downward direction using the TAB key. Pressing the SHIFT+TAB keys to go back does not work.

Using the mouse to navigate in the DAServer Manager is recommended.

Hot Configuration:

Modifying the Default Update Interval, while the DAServer is communicating with a PLC, will not take effect until the current update interval has completed.

Watchdog Item:

The historically reserved item "Watchdog" can be added, but will log the following two messages:

These messages are spurious, as the item itself will work.

Device Groups:

Attempting to rename a Device Group with the same name but different case (upper or lower) will fail. Device Groups are case insensitive and, therefore, treat upper and lower cases of a character as the same character.

L00003667:

System items do not show in the DAServer Manager Diagnostics, unless a client subscribes to them.

L00004239:

The DAServer Manager does not automatically refresh when the DAServer on a remote node is uninstalled or has gone off-line/online.

L00032697:

Upgrading with the existing DAServer Manager open and the DAServer running will result in double "SMC -" listed under the 'Files in Use' area in the pop-up Warning dialog box from Installation Program.

DAServer-Generic

L00010798:

The Warning message in Log Viewer to indicate clamping of values because of a type conversion is sometimes incorrect. The text for "...from x to y failed..." very often has illegible characters for "x."

L00012809:

The $SYS$WriteComplete system tag does not display the correct value following an InTouch reinitialize I/O during a recipe download.

L00021206:

The Hot Configuration operations do not leave their corresponding messages in the Log Viewer.

L00021483:

Significant performance degradation in accessing the configuration view of a device node under the DAServer Manager SMC will occur with more than 1,000 Device Items defined.

L00032007:

DAServer does not start as a service if installed without DDESLPlugIn.

L00033649:

When DDE/SuiteLink are not present and the server is in Service Mode, the shortcut menu and SMC toolbar show Activation as an option; however, selecting these items does nothing.

L00034359:

Both Device Items and PLC Online Items browsed by an OPC client filtering by data type return nothing.

L00034446:

InTouch WWPoke command does not work with the DAServer in DDE Mode.

L00034707:

Renaming an existing Device Group from upper-case to lower-case resulted in the original one removed upon saving the change.

ABCIP-DAServer-Specific

L00019893:

The SC structure items on PLC-5 devices are interpreted as read-only elements.

L00020539:

Adding and removing items from the server may cause the ABCIP Client's item count in the diagnostics to increase. This increased client's item count is merely a counter; it does not result in extra memory consumption, and neither does it place any extra load into the PLC.

L00021090:

When the tag database in the ControlLogix processor is totally different from the one expected by the client, the ABCIP DAServer may periodically display misleading logger messages about the Link Address specified in "Port Segment Not Available."

L00022445:

String pokes on SLC 500 controllers cause memory leaks. The private bytes continue to increase with repeated string pokes.

L00030413:

When configuring App Server to use load balancing and redundancy and DASABCIP is on the same computer as the app objects containing 20,000+ PLC items, we cannot reliably deploy and proper redundancy operation fails.

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Release Summary

The Wonderware ABCIP DAServer is a Microsoft Windows application program designed to provide direct and indirect connectivity to the Allen-Bradley families of ControlLogix, CompactLogix, FlexLogix, PLC-5, SLC 500, and MicroLogix controllers. Its user interface is a snap-in Microsoft Management Console (MMC) program, which is a part of the ArchestrA System Management Console (SMC) suite of utilities. This DAServer does not require the Rockwell's RSLinx software as middleware.

Acting as a communications protocol server, the ABCIP DAServer, connected on the Ethernet, allows other Windows application programs to access data in the supported Allen-Bradley PLCs (also referred to as devices) which are either directly attached to an Ethernet network or indirectly accessible via the ControlLogix Gateway from a ControlNet network, a Data Highway Plus (DH+) network, or a Data Highway 485 (DH-485) network with a DH+ Bridge module.

The PLC data accessed by the DAServer can be native to the controllers, collected from the I/O modules (module-defined) which can be connected locally and remotely to the controllers, or collected from the various field devices from the DeviceNet network. Data from the I/O modules and various DeviceNet field devices can be obtained with the appropriate mapping in the I/O configuration in the PLC, defining the specific local I/O modules or using the appropriate I/O scanner modules, including the DeviceNet scanners.

While this DAServer is primarily intended for use with Wonderware FactorySuite™ 2000 and FactorySuite A2™, it may be used with any Microsoft Windows program capable of acting as a DDE, FastDDE, SuiteLink™, or OPC DA client.

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ABCIP DAServer Documentation

The ABCIP DAServer documentation set includes the following guides:

  1. DAServer Installation Guide. This online Help provides information on installing the DAServer, including options for installing all components of the system or just individual ones. These include the DAServer Manager (including configuration components of the DAServer), the DAServer (including OPC protocol capabilities), and the DDE/SuiteLink Plug-In (for communicating with the legacy Wonderware products). This Help file can be accessed from CD-DASABCIP as Install-ABCIP.chm.
  2. Change Network Account Online Help. This Help documentation describes the tool you can use to manage credentials for node-to-node communications between ArchestrA™ components. This documentation can be accessed from the application's Help.
  3. Protocols Guide. This guide provides background information on the main protocols used between components of the Wonderware products. A protocol is the set of rules and standards for enabling computers to connect and exchange data over the network. This guide also includes information on setting up and using some of these protocols.
  4. ABCIP DAServer User's Guide. This guide describes the user interface and functions of the Wonderware ABCIP DAServer.
  5. DAServer Manager User's Guide. This documentation describes the runtime Configuration, Diagnostics, and Activation/Deactivation aspects of a Data Access Server (DAServer). These aspects of any DAServer are maintained through the generic component called the DAServer Manager.
  6. License Utility Guide. This guide describes the FactorySuite 2000 (Version 7.1) licensing strategy and explains how to use the License Utility to install license files and browse valid license files on the network.
  7. LogFlag Editor User's Guide. This documentation describes the user interface and functions of the LogFlag Editor utility. This utility can be opened only from the Log Viewer, a part of the System Management Console suite of utilities.
  8. Log Viewer User's Guide. This guide provides information about the Logger™ and the Log Viewer snap-in to the System Management Console.

Documents numbers 3 through 8 are provided in the PDF form and can be printed; they are available in the CD-ROM directory\UserDocs\English. Also, information included in these guides is provided in online Help, which can be accessed from the ABCIP DAServer's Help.

Viewing PDF Documentation

The documentation describing how to use this product are included on the CD in PDF format. Viewing these guides requires the installation of Adobe's Acrobat Reader. This utility is not included on this CD, but it can be downloaded for free from the Adobe's Web site at the following Web address:

    www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

After downloading the file from Adobe, you must run the executable to install it on your computer. Follow the typical installation routine. After installation, you can either open the Acrobat Reader and select a user's guide from the File menu, or double-click a user's guide on the CD in Windows Explorer.

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