Set up a connection

You can use the Plantt SCADA Connector to set up connections between Plantt SCADA and either AVEVA Insight or Wonderware Historian.

To launch Connector

• From the Start menu, select Wonderware, then select Plant SCADA Connector to launch Connector.

The Settings page shows four tabs: Plant SCADA, Destination, Directory, and Request. Use these to specify the originating Citect SCADA server, the destination for your data (either AVEVA Insight or Historian), and other option settings.

To specify the originating Plant SCADA server

1. Select the Plant SCADA tab and provide the following Plant connection details:

   • Primary CtAPI Server- The name or IP address of the computer running the CtAPI Server. CtAPI Server is a Citect Display Client with [CtAPI]Remote = 1 in citect.ini and has the server password configured.

   • Standby CtAPI Server - An alternate or redundant data path to retrieve historical data.

   • User name and Password - These are configured in Plant SCADA. This account should have read privilege for alarm, trend, and SPC tags.

   • Enable Alarm Event Acquisition - Select this option to publish the alarm events from Plant to Wonderware Historian. (Not available for AVEVA Insight.)

     Note: Data will not be forwarded to Wonderware Historian or AVEVA Insight if the following occurs:
     - The area or privilege of any alarm, trend, orSPC tag that is being logged using Connector is changed to a privilege or area that the CtAPI user is not allowed to access.
     - You change the privileges or view areas of the role of the CtAPI user.

Now, you can specify and connect to a destination (described below).

To connect to AVEVA Insight as the destination

2. Select the Destination tab.

3. Select AVEVA Insight (Cloud).

   Citect SCADA Connector retrieves and displays your Plant SCADA license key.

4. If you don't see your license key displayed, type it manually.

5. Select Register.

   This launches AVEVA Insight Publisher.

6. Follow the on-screen prompts in Publisher.

7. In Plant SCADA Connector, select Save.

8. Ensure that Connector has started. (For more information, see Run Plant SCADA Connector.)

To connect to a destination Wonderware Historian server

9. Select the Destination tab .

10. Select Historian (On Premises).

11. Provide these details:

    • Host - Host name or IP address for Wonderware Historian.

    • User name and Password -- These are configured in Wonderware Historian. This account must have write permission for tags.

      Note: If you have installed the Wonderware Historian 2014 R2 SP1, alarm and events data can be queried in SQL Server Management Studio using standard SQL queries. If Wonderware Historian service pack is not installed, data can be viewed and queried using the OData REST interface. For more information, see the Wonderware Historian documentation.

      For the trace, log, and acquisition information, see the log viewer in the System Management Console (sometimes labeled "System Platform Management Console"). You'll find it in the Start menu under Wonderware Utilities or Wonderware, depending on the version..

      Optionally, select Show advanced settings to review defaults or adjust as needed:

    • Port -- The TCP port of the Historian Client Access Point.
      Default: 32568

    • Enable compression -- Select this option to compress data packets being sent from the connector to the Historian Server.
      Default: Disabled.

    • Throttling network bandwidth -- Maximum network bandwidth, in kbps, between Connector and the Historian server. This can be set to a minimum of 10 Kbps, and up to a maximum of 100,000 Kbps.

      Note: This value is approximate. The actual bandwidth may be slightly higher at times.

      Default: Unlimited

    • Wait to send incomplete packets -- Amount of time, in milliseconds, that a data packet is held open for additional values to be written by Connector before the packet is sent to the Historian server. This can be set to a minimum of 50 milliseconds, and up to a maximum of 30 seconds.
      Default: 1 second

    • Pre-processing buffer size -- Size of data buffer, in MB, that Connector can use for storing data before it is sent to the Historian server. This can be set to a minimum of 0 MB, and up to a maximum of 65,535 MB. For high throughput cases, use 512 MB.
      Default: 8 MB

    • Store forward threshold -- Amount of disk space, in MB, that should be available on the disk before the connector stops accepting new values. This can be set to a minimum of 0 MB, and up to a maximum of 2,147,483,647 MB.
      Default: 125 MB

    • Store forward minimum duration -- Amount of time, in seconds, that Connector should remain in Store and Forward mode before it attempts to re-connect to the Historian server. This can be set to a minimum of 0 seconds, and up to a maximum of 3,600 seconds.
      Default: 30 seconds

12. Select Save.

    When you select Historian as your destination and select Save, Citect SCADA Connector immediately begins making the connection between the Citect SCADA server and the Wonderware Historian server.

To define optional Connector settings

13. Select the Directory tab to configure log and data folders, and disk-space consumption:

    • Log/Folder path -- Specifies the location where the Log files will be saved. For example: tracelog.dat.

    • Local Data (buffer)/Folder path -- Specifies the location where the data cache will be stored.

    • Pause when free space below -- If the disk space available on the drive (defined for the data cache) falls below this threshold (default is 10%), the connector will pause read requests. This will stop the connector from consuming more space on the hard disc. Once space becomes available normal data collection resumes automatically.

14. Select the Request tab and set the data acquisition parameters required for requesting trend data and alarm events from Citect:

    • Update Trend interval -- Determines how often the Connector Service will perform read/write trend requests. The default is 10 minutes.

    • Update Event interval -- Determines how often the Connector Service will perform read/write alarm event requests. The default is 10 minutes.

      Note: If you set the Update Event interval to 0, alarm events are read from Citect SCADA and immediately written to Wonderware Historian without any delay.

    • Update Variable Tag interval -- Determines how often the Connector Service will perform digital or/and string variable tag requests. The default is 10 seconds.

      Note: If you set the Variable Tag interval to 0, the Variable Tag will be polled every second.

    • Selected cluster(s) -- Enter the cluster or cluster names to be included during the data migration process. (Default – <empty> includes clusters available). If specifying multiple clusters, separate cluster name using a comma.

15. Select Save.

16. Stop and restart the service to apply any updated settings. The service can be restarted by either stopping and then starting the service, or selecting restart.