This driver is a stand-alone driver. It provides additional functionality to enable Geo SCADA Expert to interface with specific supported systems or devices. To interact successfully with such systems or devices, you need to:
- Install and run the driver
- Ensure that the driver is licensed
- Configure the required database items and settings on the driver
- Ensure that the database items (and any database items on which they depend) have valid, saved, configuration and are 'In Service'.
Intended Audience
This guide is designed to be used by engineer-level users who are responsible for configuring Geo SCADA Expert to export Geo SCADA Expert historic data to a Wonderware Historian On-Premise server or to AVEVA Insight (formerly Wonderware Online).
The guide also contains information for:
- Operators and engineers who use the Wonderware Historian driver to export data.
- Maintenance engineers.
Document Scope
This guide explains how to configure and operate your Geo SCADA Expert system so that it can export Geo SCADA Expert historic data to a Wonderware Historian On-Premise server or to AVEVA Insight (formerly Wonderware Online).
Unless stated otherwise, we use the term 'Wonderware Historian' to refer to the historian that is available on a Wonderware Historian On-Premise server or in AVEVA Insight (formerly Wonderware Online). We use the term 'Wonderware Historian database item' to refer to the database item that you can configure in the Geo SCADA Expert database in order to represent a connection to the historian in either of the above applications.
Prerequisite Reading
This guide contains technical information that is intended for users that are sufficiently familiar with Geo SCADA Expert configuration and operation. Before reading this driver guide, ensure that you are familiar with:
- Geo SCADA Expert configuration practices, procedures, and the configuration of properties that are common to many database items. For more information, see the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Configuration, and the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Point Configuration.
- Driver structure, components, and configuration properties, pick actions, and status attributes that are common to many drivers. For more information, see the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Drivers.
Some sections of this guide are intended for operator-level users. These sections are intended for users that are familiar with the navigational and operational aspects of Geo SCADA Expert. Before reading the operational sections in this guide, ensure that you are familiar with:
- The Geo SCADA Expert user interfaces (ViewX and Virtual ViewX), the various types of display, their navigation and operation. For more information, see the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to ViewX and Virtual ViewX Clients.
The Wonderware Historian driver enables you to export Geo SCADA Expert historic data to a Wonderware Historian On-Premise server or to AVEVA Insight (formerly Wonderware Online).
The ability to export Geo SCADA Expert data is only supported by Wonderware Historian 2014 R2 SP1 Patch 02 and later.
Certain features and functionality are only available in later versions of Wonderware Historian (see Supported Versions of Wonderware Historian).
When you have installed the driver, you can then configure a Geo SCADA Expert point or accumulator so that Geo SCADA Expert can export its data to specific Wonderware Historians. Geo SCADA Expert will automatically start exporting new data for an enabled point or accumulator to the selected Historians. It does this by using an API called HCAL (the Historian Client Access Layer).
HCAL is installed when you install the Wonderware Historian driver. Geo SCADA Expert sends historic data to HCAL, which then manages its onward transmission to the Wonderware Historian. Geo SCADA Expert exports historic data at the same time as it stores the data in the Geo SCADA Expert database. It only exports newly created historic data. It will not export data that was created before you place the Wonderware Historian database item 'in service'. Geo SCADA Expert will not export data that it did not store due to historic compression or filtering (see Historic Data Compression in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Point Configuration). HCAL applies no further filtering.
HCAL can store exported historic data in a store-and-forward cache. This is useful if the network connection to the Wonderware Historian is intermittent or unavailable. In such a situation, HCAL will cache the export data and when the link becomes available again, it will send it to the Wonderware Historian. For more information about HCAL, see the documentation supplied with Wonderware Historian.
For each enabled point or accumulator, Geo SCADA Expert uses HCAL to create a new tag in the selected Wonderware Historians. It does this when it exports the first data to the Historians (see Wonderware Historian Tags).
To export historic data to a Wonderware Historian, follow this procedure:
- Install the Wonderware Historian Driver.
- Configure the Wonderware Historian Driver Server Setting to set up the store-and-forward cache.
- Add a Wonderware Historian Database Item to the Geo SCADA Expert database for each Wonderware Historian to which you want to export. This database item holds the Wonderware Historian export settings.
- Configure each Wonderware Historian Database item (see Configure a Wonderware Historian Database Item). If you want to export data to AVEVA Insight (formerly Wonderware Online), you need to set the connection token (see Exporting Historical Data to AVEVA Insight).
- Place the Wonderware Historian database items In Service.
- Configure the Historic details for each point or accumulator for which you want to export historic data (see Defining Historic Details for a Point in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Point Configuration).
Historic data is only exported for points and accumulators for which a Wonderware Historian database item is specified in Export section of the configuration Form. Data that is subsequently stored in the Geo SCADA Expert historian will be exported to the specified Wonderware Historian servers. For more information about both of these requirements, see Define the Historic Export Details in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Point Configuration.