Configure the PI Interface for Ping

Note: PI ICU requires PI 3.3 or later.

The PI Interface Configuration Utility provides a graphical user interface for configuring PI interfaces. If the interface is configured by the PI ICU, the batch file of the interface (PIPing.bat) will be maintained by the PI ICU and all configuration changes will be kept in that file and the PI Module Database. The procedure below describes the necessary steps for using PI ICU to configure the PIPing Interface.

1. From the PI ICU menu, select Interface, then New Windows Interface Instance from EXE…, and then Browse to the PIPing.exe executable file. Then, enter values for Host PI System, Point Source and Interface ID#. A window such as the following results:

   

   Interface name as displayed in the ICU (optional) contains the prefix PI-, and the same name is the display name in the services menu.

   Note that in the above example the Host PI System is zdenekpc. To configure the interface to communicate with a remote PI Server, select 'Interface => Connections…' item from PI ICU menu and select the default server. If the remote node is not present in the list of servers, it can be added

2. Click Add.

   The following display should appear:

   

   Once the interface is added to PI ICU, near the top of the main PI ICU screen, the Interface Type should be PIPing. If not, use the drop-down box to change the Interface Type to be PIPing.

3. Click Apply to enable the PI ICU to manage this copy of the PIPing Interface.

   

4. Select an Interface-specific page by clicking PIPing in the ICU control's left hand pane.

   The PIPing page allows you to enter values for the startup parameters that are particular to the PIPing Interface.

   

   1. Set the Ping Interface specific parameters.

      The PIPing page for PI ICU has 1 section. It lets you to choose the timeout duration for the ping response and the number of threads which will have an interface available. A yellow text box indicates that an invalid value has been entered, or that a required value has not been entered.

      

   2. Set additional parameters.

      This section is provided for any additional parameters that the current ICU Control does not support.

      

Since the Ping Interface is a UniInt-based interface, in some cases the user will need to make appropriate selections in the UniInt page. This page allows the user to access UniInt features through the PI ICU and to make changes to the behavior of the interface.

To set up the interface as a Windows Service, use the Service page. This page allows configuration of the interface to run as a service as well as to starting and stopping of the interface. The interface can also be run interactively from the PI ICU. To do that go to menu, select the Interface item and then Start Interactive.

For more detailed information on how to use the above-mentioned and other PI ICU pages and selections, please refer to the PI Interface Configuration Utility User Manual. The next section describes the selections that are available from the PIPing page. Once selections have been made on the PI ICU GUI, press the Apply button in order for PI ICU to make these changes to the interface's startup file.