Lesson 1: Connect to PI Data Archive or PI AF database

After completing this lesson you will be able to:

• Describe the structure of a PI AF database

• Create a simple console application

• Use AF SDK to create an application to connect to a PI AF server or PI Data Archive

• Use the PISystems class to find a list of known PI AF servers, and the PIServers class to find the list of Data Archive servers

• Describe the AF SDK internal cache

• Connect to PI AF server and Data Archive collectives

Help for methods and data types used in this lesson

The following links contain information that describes important objects used in this lesson. Refer to these pages on the OSIsoft Support site when writing code for the exercises:

• AFDatabase Class

• AFElementTemplate Class

• AFDatabase.ElementTemplates.FilterBy() Method

• AFNamedCollectionList Class

• AFAttributeTemplate Class

• UOMClass Class

• AFEnumerationSets Class

• AFCategories Class

Introduction

For this lesson, you will access a PI AF database named Green Power Company, which has already been configured on your local PI AF server. You will be asked to print to the console the names and properties of various PI AF objects. You should familiarize yourself with the Green Power Company PI AF database using PI System Explorer before starting the exercises.