Pushing AssetCentre Archive files to a Network Hard Drive

[dcooper33]

This may be way out in left field, but I'm wondering if any one out there has ever tried to write any code to extract archived ACD and MER files out of the AssetCentre SQL database and store them in a backup location.
Rockwell Tech support says that the AssetCentre software is not capable of this kind of push.
The reason I am trying to figure out a way to do this is the server hosting AC is off-site, and I worry about losing access to all our plc/hmi files if the server goes down. If the files were just being stored in regular format on the server hard drive, then I think I could hammer out a macro to schedule a daily back-up fairly easily, but I am not a SQL guy. All of the sample code I've looked at for SQL file retrieval is pretty much Greek to me.

We are talking about a few hundred files total, so a check-out/copy/paste method one file at a time is not looking very attractive at this point! Am I totally up the creek on this one?

Thanks guys,
Dustin

 

[The Plc Kid]

Anything can be done with enough time and money but it would not really make sense.

My first question is why is your FTAC server offsite anyway?

I would be working to get that onsite as that was the way it was designed to work. if IT from another location needs to manage it ok they can remote into it.

If you internet connection fails from your site to the server site when you need something then you have a real problem and as we all know thats how Murphy's law works. As soon as you have a connection problem or IT decides to fix something that is not broken thats when you will need a file from your FTAC server.

My advice get it onsite and get it virtualized at least. Take it a step further and use a software called never fail that does auto failover if your vsphere host dies and you will always have rock solid access to your FTAC server.

I do wish that RA had a management console for managing multiple FTAC servers at different sites within a given company / corporation.

 

[dcooper33]

Anything can be done with enough time and money but it would not really make sense.

My first question is why is your FTAC server offsite anyway?

I would be working to get that onsite as that was the way it was designed to work. if IT from another location needs to manage it ok they can remote into it.

If you internet connection fails from your site to the server site when you need something then you have a real problem and as we all know thats how Murphy's law works. As soon as you have a connection problem or IT decides to fix something that is not broken thats when you will need a file from your FTAC server.

My advice get it onsite and get it virtualized at least. Take it a step further and use a software called never fail that does auto failover if your vsphere host dies and you will always have rock solid access to your FTAC server.

I do wish that RA had a management console for managing multiple FTAC servers at different sites within a given company / corporation.

Kid,
I wholeheartedly agree with the desire to have the server on-site. My boss and I pushed for it, but in the end it came down to some kind of contractual problem with corporate IT where we are not allowed to house a server on-site. I don't begin to understand the reasons and/or logic (if any) behind this. It's just a fact of life I have to live with.

I will look into this "never fail" software at least, thanks for the tip.

Cheers,
Dustin

 

[The Plc Kid]

That is a real bummer. One of the primary reasons I hate dealing with IT on anything.All my stuff is seperate from theirs and they have tried to get there hands on it multiple times but in general our IT dept is pretty stupid so it's not hard for me to make it so confusing that they don't want to mess with it.

Makes life easier for me. I have been through the same situation you have about onsite servers. if it's critical it should be onsite with a offsite backup. I think in the least I would try to have something like never fail to ensure uptime and then you WAN connection is your next weak point. Hopefully have have at least 2 different connection methods there.

We have XO communications for out internet connection and metro ethernet but we also have 2 DSL lines from At&t and a cellular aircard / router (cradlepoint) for a backup connection also. So the backup connections are not fast but there are good enough for remote management and using something like FTAC.

I have programs on a small NAS also just in case that only I can get into so I know things are backep and copied to the right place,etc.

I don't know how much rev history you need to keep but maybe if you get something like a small NAS drive and starting placing there weekly maybe it won't be too bad.

 

[dcooper33]

Well as usual, I was completely over-thinking this. We set up a Synology, dual 3tb HDD on the plant VLAN. This drive has user logins set up on it, so we can control access. Then it was just a matter of mapping the drive to our automation laptops, then doing a plant-wide "get" operation to that drive. After a few minutes, there all my files all, safe as can be

I'll have to play around with the schedules a bit, see if I can get this to happen automatically. If not, it's still a pretty good deal.

Thanks Kid!

Dustin