Understanding services

The RealTime and Historical components are designed to run as a series of Windows Services. A Windows Service has the following characteristics on the Microsoft (MS) Windows platform:

• The software can run without requiring a user to login.

• The software can be configured to start immediately when the computer reboots.

• The software does not require any user interaction.

• The software is expected to run independent of users logging into, or out of, the given computer.

• A Windows Service can be considered dependent on other Windows Services. In this configuration, the parent will be started before the child services.

• A Windows Service can map to more than one process.

A Windows Service is the mechanism of choice on any Windows OS Platform for any applications that are not user interface programs.

A AVEVA Enterprise SCADA Service maps directly to a Windows Service (one-to-one correlation), with some additional configuration defined within the Configuration Datastore (Active Directory (AD) on a project).

Many AVEVA Enterprise SCADA services may be running on any given computer.

For those AVEVA Enterprise SCADA Services, the infrastructure delivers some additional benefits:

• Provides support within the Network Management Console (Administrator User Interface) for startups and shutdowns. For more information, refer to Computers Object Services folder.

• Monitors processes that are members of the service.

• Provides support for Redundancy (arbitration).