General

What is PI Cloud Connect?

PI Cloud Connect is a multi-account, cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering managed by OSIsoft that allows you to share data between PI Systems.

• Multi-account because the solution can natively manage multiple organizations/companies who subscribe to the service

• Cloud-based because the solution leverages components running in Microsoft Azure, the public cloud offering from Microsoft

• Managed by OSIsoft because we support, maintain and upgrade this service and all its components

What is the value of PI Cloud Connect?

PI Cloud Connect enables you to easily share data stored in your PI systems. It secures and brokers communications between a publisher and a subscriber, even if they are external to your organization. You can share PI AF elements and their associated data (both real-time and metadata) from the PI Cloud Connect Customer Portal. Another value provided by PI Cloud Connect is to share PI AF templates, so that your asset models sync themselves.

Can I publish or subscribe to data with PI Cloud Connect if I do not have PI AF?

No. PI Cloud Connect utilizes the PI AF SDK and requires a connection to both PI AF and PI Data Archive. It is not possible to publish or subscribe to data without PI AF on both sides of the data exchange.

Which cloud infrastructure is used for PI Cloud Connect? Is it a public or private cloud?

PI Cloud Connect uses Microsoft Azure, the public cloud offering from Microsoft. At the moment, no other cloud providers (private or public) are supported. The cloud components of PI Cloud Connect are deployed in the OSIsoft Azure subscription. Customers using PI Cloud Connect do not need to subscribe to Microsoft Azure.

Does OSIsoft have access to the logs?

OSIsoft has access to all logs generated by the backend service, as well as logs reported from the customer PI Connect node.

What is the PI Cloud Connect Customer Portal?

The PI Cloud Connect Customer Portal is a web-based portal where users can manage users, publications, subscriptions and nodes.

How does PI Cloud Connect support policies around data export restrictions?

• From a technical perspective, the Azure-based components of PI Cloud Connect are at the moment deployed in the Western North America region only. This means that all traffic is routed through this region, regardless of where the PI Connect nodes are deployed. We are looking into supporting deployment of our solution in multiple geographical regions to optimize the connection between PI Connect nodes with more local Azure resources but also to accommodate data export restrictions.

• From a business perspective, our experience is that PI Cloud Connect customers will contractually manage the policies and restrictions around data being shared with another party in a different country or with a party that could export the data outside acceptable geographical boundaries. PI Cloud Connect does not detect the physical geo-location of PI Connect nodes or enforce restrictions about where PI Connect nodes can be deployed. It is therefore the responsibility of the parties engaging in data exchange to agree around policies for managing in-country data restrictions.