ClearSCADA Installation Guide - System Performance Guidelines (ClearSCADA System Requirements)

System Performance Guidelines

System performance is affected by many factors. When setting up your system, you should take into account:

For optimal system performance, we recommend that you:

Choose the fastest possible memory bandwidth
Split the ClearSCADA database across separate physical disks
Use Solid State Disks (SSD) for storing historic and Event Journal data online (see Disk Drives and RAID Arrays)
Ensure that log files are written to a suitable partition that contains sufficient disk space and does not impact on the space required for other files (see Move all New Log Files to a Different Location in the ClearSCADA Guide to Server Administration).

When using ViewX with HTTPS and certificates, attempting to run a script that connects to the ClearSCADA Server can cause long delays (of the order of 20 seconds) the first time you run the script after starting ViewX. This is because of the way that certificate revocation lists (CRLs) are downloaded from the Windows update server.

If you encounter this problem, we recommend that you contact your IT department.

For more about scripting, see the ClearSCADA Guide to Scripting.

ATTENTION: This note only applies to machines that are running Windows Server 2012 R2 or earlier versions of Windows. With such versions of Windows, the W32Time service is not a full-featured NTP solution. Therefore, for high accuracy environments (such as ones in which time needs synchronizing to within an accuracy of 1 to 2 seconds), use an NTP client to maintain accurate time, and disable Windows Time (W32Time).

Windows Time uses the Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP), which is a simplified version of Network Time Protocol (NTP). As such, high accuracy tolerances such as that mentioned above are outside of the design specification of the W32Time service. For more information, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/939322.

(With computers that are running Windows Server 2016 and newer operating system versions, high accuracy time can be achieved using W32Time, providing that certain criteria are satisfied. For more information, see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/939322.)

Server class computers and virtual machines (VMs) on server class computers should not be used to run ViewX in a day-to-day operational environment; instead, appropriate client machines should be used. Client machines often have a higher graphics hardware specification than server class computers. This higher graphics specification is required to run ViewX in a day-to-day operational environment, within which users might perform graphics-intensive tasks such as viewing complex Mimics, or working with multiple or floating documents (see Client PC Specifications).

The standard graphics hardware on server class computers and on VMs on server class computers may only be adequate for running ViewX for administrative purposes (such as performing initial system configuration and user account setup).