Re: [foxboro] Automation of upload/checkpoint/save_all at sites with IACC, ICC, or IEE!!

Kevin,
    Thanks for the info.  They have two P91 2003 Servers at the refinery 
and I have used the remote desktop functionality.  It works okay.  Duc 
and I were discussing the possibilities of using SOTM CP boot hosts 
before I left Dow Corning.  How many P82's do you have?  Are you happy 
with them?
Kevin Fitzgerrell wrote:
> Tom,
>
> There are still a couple of options for keeping a central
> configuration machine in the MESH age, but it depends on your CP
> hosts.  We use (for now at least) P82 Solaris 10 workstations for our
> hosts and ICC seems to work just like it always did between them.  In
> our testbeds we use P91 Windows 2003 servers, and while you can't
> remote ICC between them, you can pull a remote RDP session for ICC.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kevin
>
> On 10/31/08, tjvandew@xxxxxxxxx <tjvandew@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>   
>> Terry,
>>     Using the checkpoint file as the master for all CP information IS
>>  the best idea.  There are utilities such as dbvu that already extract
>>  data from the checkpoint file and they are lightening fast.  Alex talked
>>  about Foxboro moving in that direction back before the Infusion
>>  development and it sounded like a good idea then.  When using IEE as the
>>  configuration tool is there still a checkpoint file as we know it
>>  today?  I would think it would still have to exist.  If so, the
>>  checkpoint file should be a great and absolute source of all information
>>  in the CP regardless of whether you are using IEE, IACC, or ICC.
>>  De-compiling the checkpoint file might be a bit complicated but it seems
>>  like it would be money well spent by Foxboro and would provide users
>>  with more credible information in a much faster and more reliable way.
>>  The relationship between the checkpoint and workfile has been a source
>>  of confusion from day one and the workfile has become corrupted on too
>>  many occasions.  Since the checkpoint creates a raw image dump of what
>>  is running in the CP at the time the checkpoint is initiated it contains
>>  all of the data needed and it is now quick enough to be invoked at the
>>  beginning of a configuration session to insure the user is seeing what
>>  is really running in the CP.
>>     Alex or Russ, what were the factors that facilitated the quantum
>>  reduction in the time it takes to checkpoint a 270 series CP?  Was it
>>  just the 100mb/s bandwidth and switched Ethernet that the MESH provides
>>  between the 270 CP's and the boot host where the checkpoint file is
>>  stored?  The increased processor power of the CP and/or boot host?  Or a
>>  change in the checkpoint communication data stream?  At any rate, the
>>  270's checkpoint in seconds rather than minutes that the  nodebus based
>>  CP's take.
>>     The silence on my last email asking questions about automating
>>  uploads in IACC was deafening.  I think that silence was a positive
>>  confirmation that there is no mechanism in place to allow it and it
>>  points out a glaring deficiency in IACC.
>>     This email proposes a possible solution to a problem that has
>>  plagued IA users from the beginning of IA time but it would be no
>>  surprise to me if it falls on deaf ears also.
>>     Before retiring from Dow Corning and working on the Tesoro Hawaii
>>  project I had no experience with IACC.  Although I am still not an
>>  expert on IACC I see little advantage to using IACC as a day-to-day
>>  configuration tool.  All of the people I have seen use it are still
>>  using ICC driver tasks functions, (iccprt), to provide the bulk of data
>>  they need to do their jobs.  There are a lot better tools that users
>>  have developed with individually developed applications than what IACC
>>  provides.  I can understand that it provides people developing the
>>  software applications from a remote location a better tool to create
>>  loop templates and standards but IACC actually gets in the way down at
>>  the day-to-day use level IMHO.  But IACC is the only mechanism on a
>>  multi-boot-host MESH network that allows for a centrally located
>>  configuration workstation.  If you use ICC on the MESH you have to be in
>>  a direct session with the CP boot host.  That was a large step backward
>>  from the UNIX based use of ICC that allowed configuration of any CP from
>>  any workstation on the nodebus/carrierband network.
>>
>>  Cheers,
>>  Tom VandeWater
>>  Control Conversions Inc.
>>  Kapolei, HI
>>
>>
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>>
>>     
>  
>  
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>   


 
 
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