Process Historian (WinCC)

Hi,

Can Process Historian run without a WinCC ?
We want to be able to shut down WinCC without data loss.

Thanks,
Kind regards,
C

The Process Historian reads data from the WinCC server, not the CPU, so no WinCC, no Data.

Ken Moore said:

The Process Historian reads data from the WinCC server, not the CPU, so no WinCC, no Data.

Click to expand...

Just to be clear, no WinCC, no NEW data.


Anything looking at the process historian will still be able to access the existing data while WinCC is down.

Hmm

Hi,

Thanks for your replies,

Hmmm that's a pitty...
Then we can choose Wonderware Historian of Proficy Historian for a better solution I think if we want a WinCC that we can shut off.

Thanks,
Regards,
C

If you have redundant WinCC servers you can take them down one at a time and still collect data. Some 3rd party historians also read the data from WinCC via OPC, so you have the same issues with WinCC not running. The advantage of using WinCC is that WinCC is tag based.

If you want you could purchase an OPC server from Matrikon or KepWare and read directly from the PLC. But it will not be tag based, it will be memory based. So if you want to read a certain value, you will need to know what DB address holds the information you want. I recently did this and it is a lot more work.

Proficy

Hi,

Actually we have such a set-up...

We have 2 WinCC Servers and a Historian Server. All installed on separated servers. We run Siemens OPC DA on each WinCC Server next to the WinCC software. Proficy Collectors also run on the WinCC servers and are collecting the data and forwarding data to the Proficy Historian Server running on our main Historian and reporting server. When that server is down, the Proficy collectors are still collecting data and buffering it. This set-up is not bad, but like you said, we have adresses based configuration for the Proficy side.
But the advantage is, WinCC may be stopped without the loss of collecting data in the Historian this way.

Hmm, redundancy is a possibillity.

Kind regards,
C

Ken Moore said:

If you have redundant WinCC servers you can take them down one at a time and still collect data. Some 3rd party historians also read the data from WinCC via OPC, so you have the same issues with WinCC not running. The advantage of using WinCC is that WinCC is tag based.

If you want you could purchase an OPC server from Matrikon or KepWare and read directly from the PLC. But it will not be tag based, it will be memory based. So if you want to read a certain value, you will need to know what DB address holds the information you want. I recently did this and it is a lot more work.

Click to expand...

Combo said:

We have 2 WinCC Servers and a Historian Server. All installed on separated servers. We run Siemens OPC DA on each WinCC Server next to the WinCC software. Proficy Collectors also run on the WinCC servers and are collecting the data and forwarding data to the Proficy Historian Server running on our main Historian and reporting server. When that server is down, the Proficy collectors are still collecting data and buffering it.

Click to expand...

What is the actual use case where you need to shut down WinCC? If you're rebooting the computer, the Proficy collector that's installed on the same PC will shut down as well. If you just need to stop the graphics, the WinCC Server will keep running in the background regardless whether the graphics are displayed or not. Most changes I've seen with WinCC can be made live.

WinCC will buffer data locally as well, if the Process historian is down for some reason.

Global scripts

Well, we change global scripts from time to time

mk42 said:

What is the actual use case where you need to shut down WinCC? If you're rebooting the computer, the Proficy collector that's installed on the same PC will shut down as well. If you just need to stop the graphics, the WinCC Server will keep running in the background regardless whether the graphics are displayed or not. Most changes I've seen with WinCC can be made live.

WinCC will buffer data locally as well, if the Process historian is down for some reason.

Click to expand...

mk42 said:

What is the actual use case where you need to shut down WinCC? If you're rebooting the computer, the Proficy collector that's installed on the same PC will shut down as well.

Click to expand...

Nothing, other than perhaps the network topology, stops the Proficy collector being installed in the Historian server. I had this discussion last year as an option.

restart

Combo said:

Well, we change global scripts from time to time

Click to expand...

We restart WinCC, not the server. Just because global scripts don't update the way action scripts do when saving a change...
So the WinCC must be able to restart, even if this is only 2 mins, there will be data loss during that period...