A few years ago I experienced the most basic concepts of PM-Quality that you can find here. Now we will explore the latest version as of today of PM-Analyze.
The PM-ANALYZE, PM-QUALITY, and PM-CONTROL share the same working philosophy regarding their components and architectures.
- PM-PRODUCT (Analyze, Control, Quality)
- PM-SERVER
- PM-AGENT
And the first question, what is PM-ANALYZE for?
It serves as a historian to record and analyze the data from our plant.
Once the installation is done based on a distributed architecture, we dedicate a Server to PM-ANALYZE, which by default includes the PM-SERVER and will be where we create our project, and on the other hand, we have a WinCC RT Unified, where we install the PM-AGENT Unified.
This is the architecture I have set up for testing.
Once installed and started, the first thing to do is to create a new project.
Following the WinCC philosophy, the default directory is as follows.
TIP To delete a project, close the PM-SERVER and delete the entire directory, there is no option to do it in the interface.
Once the project is created, the next step is to create a new station.
We select according to our project needs, but for the tests to be performed, we select PM-AGENT Unified Station, where the PM-AGENT will be responsible for acquiring data from the WinCC RT Unified and supplying it to the PM-SERVER for registration in the databases.
We follow the four steps of the wizard. Name of the station.
The data source: Our example based on WinCC RT Unified.
We are testing a distributed architecture, where there is a central Server and the different stations connect to it to register the data.
The next thing the wizard asks us is the name of the PC where the PM-AGENT is running.
And we finish the wizard.
It can be seen in the next image that the communication arrows are already correct, now we just need to finish configuring it as a trusted communication to change to running state.
On the machine where WinCC RT Unified is located, it is important for the connection with the PM-AGENT to be established that the Runtime is activated; otherwise, it will not start ;-). Try it to understand how it works.
If WinCC RT is activated, the PM-AGENT will go into running mode and the connection with the PM-SERVER can be established.
Here you have the incoming connection and you need to trust the connection to validate the certificate and move it from rejected to trusted.
TIP If you want to delete that connection for some reason and create a new one, the directory where the certificate is located is as follows:
C:\ProgramData\Siemens\Process Management\PM-AGENT-UNIFIED
If after creating the new connection it doesn't work, restart the PC, due to all the tests I have been conducting.
Hence the next confirmation, to move the certificate.
And the connection is now trusted. Once we configure the PM-SERVER, the Tag, Alarms, process value part will start serving the data, and its subsequent registration in the databases.
TIP By default, the buffer is for 30 days, but depending on your configuration, adapt this part to your needs.
You can find the buffer file here and see how it works
C:\ProgramData\Siemens\Process Management\PM-AGENT-UNIFIED\xxxx
Here you can already see that the prohibited icon has disappeared and at the same time the running icons are in green ;-)
Important, by default the database configuration is as is, adapt it according to your needs.
We continue in PM-ANALYZE Part 2 :-)