PI Connector for IEC 61850 operational overview

Each connector is designed for a specific data source. The connector queries the data source to discover assets, relations between assets, time-series measurements, and relations between assets and time-series measurements that the data source contains. The connector creates generalized streams to convey the assets, relationships, and time-series measurements to one or more PI Connector Relay hosts. The connector output streams are generalized in the sense that they are independent of the databases or historians that store data from the streams.

The following figure shows the data flow from a data source to PI AF and Data Archive.

Connector to PI AF and PI Data Archive architecture diagram

Connectors communicate with PI Connector Relay hosts over encrypted TCP/IP connections, which allows them to be on different computers.

Although the figure shows only one PI Connector Relay host, a connector can replicate its output streams to multiple PI Connector Relay hosts. Similarly, a PI Connector Relay can support multiple PI AF servers and Data Archive servers, including collectives.

The connector does not communicate directly to any type of historian or database. Also, streams from the connector are strictly one-way to the PI Connector Relay, which means that a connector cannot obtain any information from either PI AF or Data Archive.

Asset creation

From the response, the connector creates the PI AF element hierarchy and PI points in Data Archive. Each device is represented as an element in PI AF. Therefore, an AF data reference attribute is created for each measurement under the corresponding device.

Note: For more information on the point source of the PI points created, see Data source configuration settings for PI Connector for IEC 61850.