Backing up plant program files

How is everybody doing? I recently just got promotoed to controls coordinator for my plant. I will be in charge for all PLC related issues including backing up all plant files. I have worked as an electrical technician for a while not but this role brings a lot of new territory. I know from visiting this site often, many of you are very seasoned at what I am trying to take on. What is the easiest method of making sure all our program files are up to date and backed up. 90% of our equipment is run by means of Rockwell software, mostly Logix 5000. Our plant is rather large with well over 150 PLC, Device Net, HMI programs. What type of time table should I back everything up and is there an easy way to accomplish this? Those of you that answer, thank you for the help...........

How is everybody doing?

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Very good thanks for asking...

The way I do it... and I have not found any perfect ideas, they are all a pain in the ***, every time you make a change you need to back it up, its very time consuming to say the least

ALL of mine are on the network for anyone and everyone to get, that said I also have a back up of them that is the master set that only I can get, in the file I have an archived folder, that has them all, the name also has the date ie. PressA121507, so everyone know the last time it was backed up and I made a change, even though we have 100+ plc's I make most of the changes, with the exception of one line and they save it the same way and put it in my folder on the network.

The main thing is to have a good way of doing it and everyone do it the same way, like I said the hardest part is doing it.. even if you change a timer you have to make the back up, also you have to back up and PC that is on line such as ethernet PC's

Someone needs to come up with a software that will do this and they can make some very good money, my problem is we have every type of PLC but Omron...

If you come up with a good one let us know as I said I have not found a perfect one yet

Company wide we use Microsoft Visual Source Safe to store all of our programs. We have a hierarchy that must be followed, folders for development code, and folders for released code, sub folders within specific to the machines on the floor, containing the various code revisions. The highest revision should always match the "active" code within the machine. Anytime the code is changed we must bump the revision number, and complete the appropriate paperwork to officially document the change, the documentation tracks date, description of change, and who made the change, this information is then stored in the corporate database for reference.

This system does a good job of making sure everyone stores the program in the same manner, but with all the documentation involved, it's still a hassle.

If I'm developing code, I'll add another minor revision number to the current revision, this makes it very easy to backup as I complete a development task. I also document all of my changes (for personal use) referencing the minor rev that I have added.

mjkoc518.

This might be more than you want to take on, but I'll toss it out any way.

In this thread http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=27182&highlight=backup long time member PhilipW talks about his experence with Subversion.

If you have a lot of networked Rockwell Automation equipment, including AC drives and PanelView terminals, you might want to look at Rockwell's FactoryTalk AssetCentre.

It does the customary disaster recovery and archiving and also logs changes and edits to programs by users on the network, and does automatic program comparisons on a periodic basis.

I have been running RSMACC now for about a year. I am upgrading to the Factory Talk AssetCentre in February.

Yes, the archiving is a nice tool. It goes out over the network at user selectable times and does an upload of the current program and compares it to you "base" program. If any difference are detected it can shoot you an email with a nice summary of what was changed.
I am archiving CLX5000 and PF700 files.

I installed the Archiving and Network Health portion of the system first part of the year. I wanted to wait to roll out the security portion as, there is NO backdoor into the PLC processors once security has been activated. That means, if Factory Talk or RSMACC doesn't work, you don't get online with the processors. Not even with the old serial cable to channel 0.

So, once everyone was comfortable using the system I decided it was time to roll out security. I have been trying since June to get a Rockwell Service Engineer on-site to finish this installation. Evidently RA does not have nearly enough service guys to support this application. The fact that I have been trying for 5 months to get one on-site is proof of this. And, if you call the 1-800 number for RSMACC or AssetCentre support, you might as well call a psychic hotline.

So, archiving feature is nice but, make sure you get everything you need before the engineering installing your software leaves.
It only comes with the "tail light support". As long as you can see his tail lights, you have support!