Redundant OPC servers on the same machine?

First post. Hi to everyone.

I've been asked to implement a HMI in FactoryTalk ME with redundant OPC servers. For that, I have a Controllogix PLC bank with dual redundant ethernet modules and only one PC with dual ethernet ports.

My plan is to install one OPC server for each ethernet module connected to one of the ethernet ports on the pc, two OPC servers in total on the same machine, and then use RedundancyMaster to take care of redundancy and switchover to make it look like one OPC to FactoryTalk. The thing is that I don't know if this can be done as I've never tried it.

My question is: does anyone know if you can install two redundant OPC servers on the same PC? thanks for the answer.

Welcome to the Forum !

I have never heard of any OPC server that can run multiple instances on a single operating system. I know for certain that RSLinx Classic and RSLinx Enterprise cannot do so.

Are you planning on running two different OPC Servers, like KepServer and RSLinx Classic, then running KepServer's redundancy manager to switch between them ?

I realize you've been *asked* to do this, so I will spare you the "why ?" questions. I think you've already been over that.

Ken Roach said:

Are you planning on running two different OPC Servers, like KepServer and RSLinx Classic, then running KepServer's redundancy manager to switch between them ?

Click to expand...

That's what I'm planning to do, however I was hoping to use two RSLinx Classic (or Enterprise?) since it comes bundled with FactoryTalk but I guess that's not an option. Does anyone know if KepServer and RSlinx can coexist on the same host? each one connected to a diferent ethernet port?

I realize you've been *asked* to do this, so I will spare you the "why ?" questions. I think you've already been over that.

Click to expand...

I know exactly what you're talking about, the idea making a redundant system with one pc only seemed nonsensical to me. I joined the integrator engineering team late in the project and the quotation is already done. They made some poor decisions in choosing hardware and software mainly due to ignorance, they didn't know there were some things they coudn't do with what they choose. I made them notice that and they're realizing. Now we're trying to keep changes minimal to not incur in new costs for the client.

Hello,

Plus is it even licensed to run two copies.

You could use VMWare and put one server in each 'Guest OS.'

Good luck,

Mark
http://www.peakhmi.com/

It sounds like what you really want is redundanct media connections. Redundancy master will not work between 2 different servers. You could use one KEPServerEX with 2 seperate channels each bound to a different NIC. The NICS are connected to the different Ethernet moduels. At that point each device would be configure exactly the same. For true server redundancy you should have the servers running on different PC's,the primary on a remote PC and the secondary server on the PC that the HMI is running on.

The OPC server for Allen Bradley from MatrikonOPC actually supports device-level redundancy and fail-overs between primary and secondary devices.

http://www.matrikonopc.com/opc-drivers/opc-Allen-Bradley/base-driver-details.aspx

Give it a try

You can also use the MatrikonOPC Redundancy Broker for redundancy between the same OPC Servers on the same machine. But to be honest with you, this is not true redundancy. You need to have the OPC Servers on different machines. Here is the link to the MatrikonOPC Redundancy Broker:

http://www.matrikonopc.com/products/opc-data-management/opc-redundancy-broker.aspx

Hope this is helpful

Wassim Daoud
Global Solutions Architect
www.MatrikonOPC.com