About OSIsoft developer technologies

OSIsoft developer technologies PI Developer Technologies (also called PI System Access) is a family of products designed to support the implementation of custom applications that work with the PI System. PI Developer Technologies also helps you integrate PI System data with other applications and business systems such as Microsoft Office or SQL Server, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, reporting and analytics platforms, web portals, geospatial, and maintenance systems, to name just a few examples.

The PI System Access suite covers a wide range of use cases in various environments, programming languages, operating systems, and infrastructures. The different technologies in the PI System Access family are:

• AF SDK

  Provides comprehensive, high-performance, Windows-based .NET programmatic access to the PI System. AF SDK:

  • Has the best performance of all PI development technologies.

  • Has more available methods and options than any other technology.

    Is limited to Windows operating systems running .NET Framework.

• PI Web API

  Enables operating system and device-independent programmatic access to the PI System through a REST API, and is the recommended cross-platform offering for any operating system that is able to use a modern web browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge. PI Web API:

  • Is not dependent on a specific operating system or programming language.

  • Has limited methods and options available compared with AF SDK.

• PI SQL Framework

  Makes the data on PI Server available for querying as if it was on a relational database. PI SQL Framework:

  • Is compatible with other systems that use Structured Query Language (SQL).

  • Has limited methods and options available compared with AF SDK (for example, setting security on assets and creating units of measure).

  • Is limited to read-only PI AF access (but can create and write to tags on your PI System).

There are more ways to access the PI System programmatically; however, the above three methods describe the vast majority of use cases.

You might consider using the tools for Microsoft PowerShell. See the OSIsoft Tech Support page PI Powershell. PowerShell cmdlets help with administration of Data Archive and PI Asset Framework servers, and can be used in a variety of ways to create scripts for commonly needed functionality or for bulk system management operations.