Managing Historian Systems

Access a System

Procedure

  1. Access Configuration Hub.
  2. In the Navigation section, select the system that you want to access.
    The System Properties section appears, displaying the following information.
    Table 1. Total Collectors and Utilization
    Field Description
    Total Collectors A chart that plots the total number of collectors in each state (for example, running, stopped).
    Write Cache Hit Ratio The hit ratio of the write cache in percentage of total writes. At the system level, this value is calculated as the average of the corresponding values of individual servers in the system.

    It is a measure of how efficiently the system is collecting data. Typically, this value should range from 95 to 99.99%. If the data is changing rapidly over a wide range, however, the hit percentage drops significantly because current values differ from recently cached values. More regular sampling may increase the hit percentage. Out-of-order data also reduces the hit ratio.
    Archive Compression The current effect of archive data compression. At the system level, this value is calculated as the average of the corresponding values of individual servers in the system.

    If the value is zero, it indicates that archive compression is either ineffective or turned off. To increase the effect of data compression, increase the value of archive compression deadbands on individual tags in the Tags section to activate compression.

    In calculating the effect of archive compression, Historian counts internal system tags as well as data source tags. Therefore, when working with a very small number of tags and with compression disabled on data source tags, this field may indicate a value other than zero. If you use a realistic number of tags, however, system tags will constitute a very small percentage of total tags and will therefore not cause a significant error in calculating the effect of archive compression on the total system.
    Write thread usage The percentage of the write threads currently in use by the system. At the system level, this value is calculated as the average of the corresponding values of individual servers in the system.
    Read thread usage The percentage of the read threads currently in use by the system. At the system level, this value is calculated as the average of the corresponding values of individual servers in the system.
    OUT OF ORDER WRITE RATE The number of out-of-order events per minute. At the system level, this value is calculated as the sum of the corresponding values of individual servers in the system.
    CONSUMPTION RATE The rate at which the archive disk space is consumed. At the system level, this value is calculated as the sum of the corresponding values of individual servers in the system.

    If the value is too high, you can reduce it by slowing the poll rate on selected tags or data points or by increasing the filtering on the data (widening the compression deadband to increase compression).
    FAILED WRITES RATE The number of samples that failed to be written per minute. At the system level, this value is calculated as the sum of the corresponding values of individual servers in the system.

    Since failed samples are a measure of system malfunctions or an indication of offline archive problems, this value should be zero. If you observe a non-zero value, investigate the cause of the problem and take corrective action.

    Historian also generates a message if a writing a sample fails. Note that the message only appears once per tag, for a succession of failed writes associated with that tag. For example, if the number displayed in this field is 20, but they all pertain to one Historian tag, you will only receive one message until that Historian tag is functional again.
    Table 2. Alarms and Events
    Field Description
    ALARM RATE The rate at which Historian is receiving alarms and events data. This data appears only if you archive the alarms and events data as well.
    Table 3. License
    Field Description
    HISTORIAN TAGS The number of tags authorized for this Historian installation by the software key and license.
    Note: If this field displays 100 tags and the number of licensed users is 1 client, you are probably running in demonstration mode and may have incorrectly installed your license key.
    USERS The number of users who have currently have currently logged in and accessed the system.
    DATA STORES The number of data stores in the system.
    Table 4. Graphs
    Name Description
    Read Sample Rate The trend of the average read sample rate across all the servers in the system per sample per minute. You can change the duration by selecting the drop-down list box in the upper-right corner of the graph.
    Receive Rate The trend of the recent rate at which the samples have been received per minute. You can change the duration by selecting the drop-down list box in the upper-right corner of the graph.


    The Servers subsection contains a list of distributed/mirror servers in the system, along with the status, the number of locations in each server, and a few other details.
    Tip: If you select the value in the LOCATIONS column, the number of locations, a list of distributed and mirror locations in the server appears. If you select a row, the same information appears in the Details section. You can add, remove, or freeze columns, in the table by selecting .
    The Locations subsection contains lists of distributed locations and mirror locations in the system. This subsection appears only for a horizontally scalable system. For each location, you can access the server machine name and the list of data stores. Similarly, for each mirror location, you can access the number of server machines and data stores in the group. In addition, the default location and data store in the system appear. You can change these default settings.
    Tip: If you select these numbers, a list of the server machines and data stores in the group appears, respectively. If you select a row, the same information appears in the Details section.

Add a System

Before you begin

Install Historian on the machine that you want to add. If you want to create a stand-alone system, install single-server Historian. If you want to create a horizontally scalable system, install Historian primary server.

About this task

If you want to manage a Historian system using Configuration Hub, you must add it to Configuration Hub.

When you access Configuration Hub for the first time, a default Historian system is available. In a distributed environment, the primary server of this system is the machine whose Configuration Hub details you enter while installing Web-based Clients. This topic describes how to add another system.
Note: Adding a Historian system is specific to the logged-in user.

Procedure

  1. Access Configuration Hub.
  2. In the Navigation section, select .
    The Add System window appears.
  3. Provide values as specified in the following table.
    Field Description
    SYSTEM NAME Enter a name for the Historian system. This name must be unique for a user.
    HISTORIAN SERVER Enter the host name or the IP address of the system that you want to add. This name must be unique for a user.
    DESCRIPTION Enter a description for the system.
    Set as Default System Select this check box if you want to set this system as the default one. If you do so, when you access Configuration Hub, this system appears by default (that is, this system is selected, and all the related information appears in the main section). The default system varies with the user.
  4. Select Add.
    The Historian system is added, and it appears in the Navigation section.

What to do next

Add a Distributed/Mirror Machine

Before you begin

  1. Install Historian distributed server on the machine that you want to add as a distributed server.
  2. Add a system. The server that you specify while adding the system serves as the primary server for the system.

About this task

If you want to create a horizontally scalable Historian system, you must first add a primary server, and then add one or more distributed/mirror machines to scale out the primary server horizontally and thus, improve performance.

Procedure

  1. Access the system to which you want to add the distributed server.
  2. In the main section, in the Servers subsection, select .
    The Add Server Machinewindow appears.
  3. Enter the host name or IP address of the machine that you want to add, and then select Add.
    The distributed server is added to the system. A distributed location is added in the server. You cannot modify or delete this location.

What to do next

If you want high availability of one or more data stores on the server, create a mirror location, and then add the data stores. If not, add the data store to the distributed location.

Remove a Distributed Machine

Before you begin

Procedure

  1. Access the system from which you want to remove a distributed machine.
  2. In the main section, in the Servers subsection, select the machine that you want to remove.
    The details of the machine appears in the Details section.
  3. In the Details section, select , and then select Delete.
    A message appears, asking you to confirm that you want to remove the distributed machine from the system.
  4. Select Delete.
    The machine is removed from the system.

Set a Default Location

About this task

When you set a default location, if you do not specify a location while adding a data store, it is added to the default location. By default, the distributed location in the primary server is the default location. You can, however, set a different default location. The following conditions apply when you set a default location:
  • You can have only one default location in a system.
  • You cannot delete a default location.
  • You can set any of the distributed or mirror locations as default.

Procedure

  1. Access the system in which you want to set the default location.
  2. Select Locations.
    The current default location appears below DEFAULT LOCATION.
  3. Next to DEFAULT LOCATION, select .
    The DEFAULT LOCATION window appears. The Location box contains a list of all the distributed and mirror locations in the system.
  4. Select the location that you want to set as default, and then select Set as Default.
    The location is set s default.

Create a Mirror Location

Before you begin

Add one or more distributed servers to the system in which you want to create a mirror group.

About this task

If you want high availability of one or more data stores, you must create a mirror group (also called a mirror location), and then add servers to it. When you do so, the data in the data stores of the mirror locations is replicated. Therefore, even if one of the servers is down, you can retrieve data from the other servers in the mirror location, thus achieving high availability.

The following conditions apply when you create a mirror location:
  • You must add minimum two servers to a mirror location. The maximum number of servers that you can add depends on your Historian license.
  • You can add a mirror location only in a horizontally scalable Historian system.
  • You can rename a mirror location, remove a machine from a mirror location, or add an additional one even after you create the mirror location. However, if only one machine remains in the group, you cannot remove it.

Procedure

  1. Access the system in which you want to add a mirror location.
  2. In the main section, in the Locations subsection, under MIRROR LOCATIONS, select .
    The Add Mirror Location window appears.
  3. Provide values as described in the following table.
    Field Description
    MIRROR LOCATION NAME Enter a name for the mirror location. The name must be unique for a system.
    SERVER MACHINES Select the servers that you want to add to the mirror group. This box contains a list of all the servers in the system. You can add minimum two servers to a mirror location.
  4. Select Add.
    The mirror location is created.

What to do next

Add a data store to the mirror location.

Rename a Mirror Location

Procedure

  1. Access the system that contains the mirror location that you want to rename.
  2. In the main section, in the Locations subsection, under MIRROR LOCATIONS, select the location that you want to rename.
    The details of the mirror location appear in the Details section.
  3. Next to the current name of the mirror location, select .
  4. Enter the new name of the mirror location, and then press Enter.
    The mirror location is renamed.

Add a Machine to a Mirror Location

Before you begin

If you want to add machine to a mirror location that already contains machines,and if you want to copy the archive and configuration information from the existing machines to the new machine, perform the following steps:
  1. Copy the archive files and configuration files from an existing machine in the mirror location to the one that you have added.
  2. Rename the configuration file <machine name>_Config.ihc.

Procedure

  1. Access the system that contains the mirror location in which you want to add a machine.
  2. In the main section, in the Locations subsection, under MIRROR LOCATIONS, select the mirror location in which you want to add a machine.
    A list of machines and data stores in the mirror location appears in the Details section.
  3. In the Details section, next to SERVER MACHINES, select .
    The Add Machine: <mirror location> window appears. The SERVER MACHINES box contains a list of machines in the system that are not yet added to the mirror location.
  4. In the SERVER MACHINES box, select the machine that you want to add to the mirror location, and then select Add.
    The machine is added to the mirror location.

Remove a Machine from a Mirror Location

About this task

If a mirror location contains only one machine, you cannot remove it.

Procedure

  1. Access the system that contains the mirror location from which you want to remove a machine.
  2. In the main section, in the Locations subsection, under MIRROR LOCATIONS, select the mirror location from which you want to remove a machine.
    A list of machines and data stores in the mirror location appears in the Details section.
  3. In the Details section, under SERVER MACHINES, next to the machine that you want to remove, select .
    A message appears, asking you to confirm that you want to remove the machine from the mirror location.
  4. Select Remove.
    The machine is removed from the mirror location.

Delete a Mirror Location

Before you begin

Delete all the data stores in the mirror location. You cannot delete a mirror location if it contains a data store.

Procedure

  1. Access the system that contains the mirror location that you want to delete.
  2. In the main section, in the Locations subsection, under MIRROR LOCATIONS, select the row containing the mirror group that you want to delete.
    In the Details section, the details of the mirror group appear.
  3. In the Details section, select , and then select Delete.
    A message appears, asking you to confirm that you want to delete the mirror location.
  4. Select Delete.
    The mirror location is deleted.

Modify a Historian System

About this task

You can change the following details of a system:
  • Name
  • Description

Procedure

  1. Access Configuration Hub.
  2. In the Navigation section, select the Historian system that you want to modify.
  3. In the upper-right corner of the main section, select , and then select Edit.
    The Edit System window appears.
  4. Modify values as specified in the following table. The HISTORIAN SERVER box is populated and disabled.
    Field Description
    SYSTEM NAME Enter a name for the Historian system. This value must be unique for a user.
    DESCRIPTION Enter a description for the system.
  5. Select Save.
    The name and description of the Historian system are changed.

Set a Default System

About this task

If you set a system as default, when you log in to Configuration Hub, this system appears by default. The following conditions apply when you set a system as default:
  • You can have only one default system in Configuration Hub.
  • You cannot delete a default system.

Procedure

  1. Access the system that you want to set as default.
  2. In the upper-right corner of the main section, select , and then select Set Default System.
    The system is set as default, indicated by .

Delete a Historian System

About this task

You can delete a Historian system if you no longer want to manage it using Configuration Hub. You cannot, however, delete a system if it is set as default.

Procedure

  1. Access Configuration Hub.
  2. In the Navigation section, select the Historian system that you want to delete.
  3. In the upper-right corner of the main section, select , and then select Delete.
    A message appears, asking you to confirm that you want to delete the Historian system.
    Note: The Delete button is disabled for a default Historian system.
  4. Select Delete.
    The Historian system is deleted.