[foxboro] Convert a Foxboro P91 Server from a P91 Dell Power Edge 2800 to a new Dell Power Edge 2900
- From: Tom VandeWater <tjvandew@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: foxboro <foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:42:26 -1000
List,
Duc has told me "I talk too much" and David Johnson once called
me "a prolific keyboard pounder". They are probably both correct
because here is my latest book. My mom always called me "Doubting
Thomas" because I wouldn't believe anything unless I could see it
myself. We tried some stuff that everyone told me wouldn't work and
now I believe them and understand better why they won't work. The
Symantec 8.5 "Restore Anywhere" sounded good on paper and did let us
restore but there were too many hardware specific issues to deal with.
It might work if everything was completely Plug and Play. How about
it Foxboro, can you do it all "Plug and Play"?
We successfully converted our box and brought it online. This
is our final procedure to convert a Foxboro P91 Server from a P91 Dell
Power Edge 2800 to a new Dell Power Edge 2900. You are welcome to
critique or suggest changes. My memory about this could be a bit
blurry. It was a long week. Having done this now, I think I could do
it again in one day. Thanks to all of the help from the list and my
Tesoro and Foxboro counterparts. Their combined knowledge made it all
possible.
1. Unpack and setup the new box in an OFFLINE mode, (no network
connections to the MESH or 2nd Ethernet).
2. Boot from the Acronis "True Image" Backup and Restore Utility
Note: The Symantec Backup and Restore Utility does not
include a CD Rom that you can boot from to do a backup. You can boot
from the Acronis True Image CD without having to load an image on the
hard drive prior to doing a backup. If you really want to do a virgin
image backup you need to use True Image. To use Symantec you first
have to load their backup utility to the hard drive. If my
observation is wrong will somebody let me know how to backup a box
using Symantec without pre-loading something on the box to be backed
up.
3. Perform a Full Image Backup of C: partition on the new box as one
restore point.
4. Perform a Full Image Backup of D: partition on the new box as
another restore point.
This allows you to quickly get back to a virgin image.
(You can also use the Foxboro/Dell restore CD's sent with the new box
but we actually found that the driver for the MATROX dual video card
was installed by Foxboro in the new box but was not included on the
restore image shipped with the box. When we restored from CD we lost
the MATROX driver for the dual card altogether and had to re-install
it from our own CD because there was none shipped with the new box.
The MATROX driver that was loaded was limited to 1024x768 resolution
for each screen and the only way we could set it to 1280x1024 was to
install the newer driver for the MATROX card.
We also found out that the on board video card on the new P91 2900 is
disabled and cannot be used for a third monitor like we were doing on
the older 2800 server. That was an unpleasant surprise.
5. Generate a Day 0 commit disk with all packages for the AW to be
upgraded marked as "NOT YET" in System Definition.
6. Do a DAY0/DAY1 install on the new box.
7. Install all of the CD based applications such as IACC, AIM_AT,
FOX_API, and anything else you need above the base DAY1 load onto the
new box. I would load the Symantec Backup and Restore Application to
the new box at this time so you will be able to do online remote
backups via the 2nd Ethernet or local backups of the box without
rebooting the box in the future.
• NOTE: This will create any registry entries that are needed on the
C: partition for these applications and also makes them visible in
"Start:All_Programs" listings. These applications need to be
installed in the default directory dictated by the CD install to
insure that everything lines up. Recommendation: "Don't change any of
the defaults!"
8. Use the Symantec Backup Utility to backup only drive D: (IA)
partition on the old box if Symantec is loaded. We successfully did a
backup of the D: partition while FOXBORO IA was running. This is
where Symantec appears to be better than Acronis True Image
• NOTE: Applications such as CSA, AIM_AT historian, and IACC store the
application, configuration, and data files entirely on the D: (IA)
partition. Also, all CP checkpoint, work files, .O files, sequence
code and ladder logic files are stored on D: (IA) partition. If you
have done anything weird with sequence include files by placing them
on the C: partition you need to make sure to save and restore them as
needed. In general, there is an excellent argument to keep all IA
related user generated files in D:/opt subdirectories. You will
successfully backup and restore all of your graphics, environments,
alarm panel and table configurations when you capture the D:
partition. Make sure that no new CSA entries, IACC modifications, or
AIM Historian modifications take place on the old box after you do
this backup or you might miss something critical.
9. Turn off the Foxboro Application in the Control Panel, (little red
devil looking FOX), on the new box before rebooting the new box using
the Symantec Restore CD in the CD Drive.
10. Once the Symantec Restore CD has booted, use the RESTORE utility
to restore only the D: (IA) partition on the new box with the backup
image created in Step 4 from the old box D: partition
.
• NOTE: The D: drive on the old box contains all of the needed files
for CSA, IACC, AIM_AT Historian and also contains the latest
historical data files from AIM*AT historian.
11. In order for the IACC Client to find installed databases on the
new box, that were backed up from the old box D:(IA) partition and
restored to the new box, you need to do the following:
• Right click on "My Computer" icon on the desktop and select "Properties"
• Left Click on the "Advanced" tab
• Left Click on the "Environment Variables" button near the bottom of
the window.
• Under the "System Variables" section locate and delete the
IACC_DBNAME variable
It defaults to IACC during initial installation
of IACC Deleting it makes IACC clients look for the IACC_Settings.txt
file that contains IACC database info.
12. Since IACC clients and potentially other applications use the 2nd
Ethernet, (wired adapter), to pass data and access applications across
the Engineering LAN you need to insure that you set up the TCP/IP
address on the new box 2nd Ethernet adapter to the same IP address and
subnet as the old box but don't physically connect it until the old
box is disconnected from the Engineering LAN.
13. Set the little red FOX in the Control Panel to enable Foxboro and
reboot the new box.
14. According to Ed Larsen the Aim*AT hostid is based on the SID when
the Operating system is loaded. Anytime you use the Dell Restore Cd,
it runs SID walker at the end generating what is supposed to be a
unique SID. When a new HostID is generated, all AIM*AT applications
such as AIMHIS –(AIM*Historian Package), AIMODB -(AIM*AT ODBC Driver
Package), OLEDB1 -(AIM*OLEDB Package), and anything you see in the
API_Admin application window will need new Authorization Codes for
each individual application under the AIM_AT hood. This means that
you have to fill out a form and FAX it to a constantly changing person
at FOXMASS and wait for them to plug your new HostID into an
application that generates a long confusing authorization string for
each of your licensed application subsets. When they mail that back
to you, you have to login to the AIM_AT API_ADMIN environment, locate
the NOT AUTHORIZED text adjacent to the app you want to authorize,
click once on NOT AUTHORIZED to highlight it in Blue, wait a few
seconds and click again to make the text editable, type the exact
string that was sent from Foxboro in, and hope you didn't make a
mistake, hit enter and hope it says AUTHORIZED. You won't get the AIM
apps running without it. There was a lot of talk about a license
regenerator but you have to be a Foxboro employee to access it. There
was also a lot of hype about a temporary 90 day license that could be
used to get you going but the number changes every 90 days and the
users don't have access to see that number either. Russ Boulay says
the current number is 8f47b67ad and that it is good til May 2009.
Enter that # into the individual package authorization codes for each
package to gain temporary access and then make sure to contact Foxboro
to get the new numbers that you will need to keep using the
application. There is question whether the temporary code will work
for more than the default 5000 historian points. We need 8000 so I am
interested to know if the temporary auth code is good for that. If
you can restore a full backup to a like Model Box I am told you don't
have to worry about this added "feature".
15. Once you have the authorizations completed you need to go to the
AIM_AT icon in Control Panel and check the box that tells it to
automatically start the AIM_AT application on bootup. If you need
FOXAPI to run all of the time for PI collection or some other app. do
the same thing for its icon in Control Panel.
16. Shutdown the old box and disconnect the 2nd Ethernet cables,
power, fiber to the MESH switches.
17. Put the new box in place of the old box and connect all of the
cables and reboot with your fingers crossed.
18. If all boots successfully, make an online backup of the new box
using Symatec and keep for future reference. If you have a like model
box that you can do a restore on I would reccommend trying it at this
time.
I have heard varying reports of being able to leave the existing
Allied Telesys fiber NIC's in place. I am uncertain if the miniport
used for REDL, (Redundant Ethernet Data Link), communication on the
MESH binds to MAC addresses of the fiber NIC's or just slots used in
the machine. If it doesn't use the MAC's then it may be possible to
backup one like box and restore to another like box and then reboot
the machine onto the MESH. I would like to hear from anyone that has
specific experience with this.
If your problem is a hard drive failure and not a model upgrade you
should be able to put a new hard drive in the same box, boot up from
Acronis True Image or Symantec Restore CD and restore both C: and D:
partitions from a backup of the box if you have anything close to
current. This is a great argument to do regular scheduled backup
across the 2nd Ethernet network on a regular basis to a server using
Symantec.
If you have a mother board failure on an old model box and have to use
a newer model or vice versa, you probably have to follow the procedure
outlined above to get the box back up and running on new hardware.
We were lucky that we didn't have a ton of other special applications
like OPC Servers and other custom apps installed like Ron Schafer
mentioned, because each of them would have their own associated
considerations to address. I hope we have thought of everything.
There isn't any good document I have found that tells you how to
accomplish all of this and Foxboro folks seem to dread trying to
tackle this as much as the end users. It is definitely a pain.
I hope this document will be useful now and in the future for
customers trying to restore or build a new box. Let me know if you
have suggestions for improvements.
Cheers,
Tom VandeWater
Control Conversions, Inc.
Kapolei, HI
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