Principles of operation for PI Interface for DNP3

The PI DNP3 interface is designed to operate as a DNP 3.0 compliant master device. The interface acting as a master device is capable of communicating with one or more DNP 3.0 compliant slave devices (RTUs).

The DNP3 interface can make requests polled data as well as receive unsolicited data from a DNP 3.0 compliant RTU. The DNP3 protocol defines static and event type data as being retrieved by actively polling the RTU at periodic scan intervals. Whereas, unsolicited data means the RTU will send messages to the interface on a non-solicited or event driven basis. The interface is designed to make use of a configuration file to set up the internal operation of the interface. The configuration file is written in XML format and is described in the Device configuration file path: section of this document.

The following sections describe the connectivity and types of data available with the use of this interface. Details on how to configure PI points for this interface can be found in the PI Point configuration section, as well as in the section, of this manual.

Note: Users of the PI DNP3 interface prior to version 2.0.0.0 must update the interface XML configuration file as specified in this manual.