OMF health messaging

PI Interface for UFL has been enhanced to send information regarding the health of an interface to an OMF endpoint. OMF refers to the Open Message Format (OMF).

The enhanced interface sends two types of OMF health data, static and dynamic. This may be sent to a PIWebAPI or an CONNECT Data Services endpoint.

The static data consists of interface identification information, such as the interface type and version. Static data updates on startup of the interface, or when the interface attempts to re-connect to the endpoint.

The dynamic data consists of real time health information for the interface, specifically in the DeviceStatus and NextHealthMessageExpected events. DeviceStatus functions somewhat differently than the traditional UniInt DeviceStatus, which stores a simplified version of the traditional UniInt DeviceStatus value.

NextHealthMessageExpected also functions differently than the traditional UniInt heartbeat tag. The interface updates this attribute every heartbeat interval by storing the time at which the next update is expected.

If the value of this attribute is a timestamp value previous to the current time, it can be assumed that one of the following has occurred:

• The interface has crashed.

• The interface cannot reach the endpoint for communication.

• The interface is unable to write data for any reason.

• The interface hung in a function call that does not return.