Learn about the benefits of upgrading to AVEVA PI Server 2018

With the 2018 release of AVEVA PI Server, you are able to keep up with security and bug fixes, while minimizing the impact on your resources.

Over the years, the PI System has grown to support customers' expansive operational needs. At the core of our clients' most critical operations lies PI Server. It provides the functionality and tools required to store and manage data from your plants, assets, and sites.

In the past, customers have had to invest considerable time planning and performing extensive testing to determine if an upgrade was viable. For many customers, unplanned downtime of business critical operations was simply not an option. As a result, some clients remain on older versions of PI Server, missing out on key benefits and security fixes.

With the latest version of PI Server, the burden of upgrades is eased, and you have a way to keep your PI Server up-to-date and secure without requiring extensive resources. Upgrading to the latest version is highly recommended and ensures you have the most stable, reliable version of PI Server.

The shift to the "critical operations" mindset

The "critical operations" mindset focuses on making only the absolutely required fixes to keep the core of the PI System up-to-date and operational. These fixes are addressed by the latest version of PI Server and include the following initiatives:

1. Harden the core of the PI System – PI Server – to focus on security and reliability.

2. Ease the management of the PI System to ensure critical operations and resources are not compromised during deployment.

Harden the Core

To harden the core of the PI System, the latest version of PI Server targets improvements to security and performance, and offers the following benefits:

• The most reliable and secure version of PI Server to date

• Fixes to critical software bugs and security vulnerabilities

• Additional flexibility in sending interface-specific metrics and status to PI Server and/or CONNECT data service via Open messaging format (OMF)

Ease management

To help ease the management of upgrading your PI System, a lightweight testing framework with templates is available to help you deploy a test environment. Since each customer's architecture is unique, the framework and samples act as a starting point for you to create a full test environment that represents your PI System.

To bring more manageability and control to deployments, the following tools are provided with the latest version of PI Server:

• An emphasis on patches vs. full upgrades, except where necessary

• Test scripts to help evaluate new patches or upgrades of the PI System prior to deployment

• Deployment templates and installation scripts

Additional resources

For more information about PI System Deployment Tests, see the Knowledge Base article: PI System Deployment Tests are now available on GitHub. There is a forum for discussing questions and feedback at Customer Portal.