Last revision: 14/04/2011
The Klinkmann Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer is a Microsoft Windows application program that
acts as a communications protocol server and allows other Windows application
programs to access the data directly from OMRON Programmable Controllers (PLCs) over the OMRON Ethernet network, no additional Omron
software needed. The Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer
requires an Ethernet card and TPC/IP protocol installed on the computer to
communicate with the Ethernet network. The Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer can access the data from Controllers connected to
the Ethernet System directly (with Ethernet Unit installed) or from Controllers
interconnected to Ethernet System through SYSMAC NET network or SYSMAC LINK
network (through PLC Gateway - an OMRON Controller which has multiple
Communications Units mounted (which includes the Ethernet Unit) and therefore
that belongs to two networks and can thus function as an interface between
them).
While Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer is primarily
intended for use with Wonderware FactorySuite™ 2000
and FactorySuite A2™, it may be used with
any Microsoft Windows program capable of acting as a DDE, FastDDE,
SuiteLink™, or OPC DA client.
This document contains important information about the Klinkmann Omron Ethernet
Direct DAServer 1.18. Please carefully
review this document for known issues in this version and changes, if any, to
the Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer documentation
included on this installation package.
Known Issues – Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer
Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer
Documentation
Detailed installation
instructions are included in the Klinkmann DAServer
Installation Guide. It is recommended that you read the Klinkmann DAServer Installation Guide prior to beginning the
installation process. In addition to the procedures described in the Klinkmann
DAServer Installation Guide, the following
installation requirements and other requirements pertaining to the installation
and uninstall orders have to be followed.
The installation for the DAServers and other Wonderware FactorySuite™
products on the same computer must follow the order as outlined. A DAServer must always be installed last:
This installation order
will ensure that any differences, which may exist in the common components
included with individual product releases, will install and run without version
conflicts. In case of any future patch on the installed Wonderware FactorySuite products, follow the particular installation
instructions from the patch.
Note!
To use OMRON Ethernet Direct DAServer in unlimited mode, the HASP key or Software License Key is needed.
The HASP key is the USB or parallel key (dongle) to be installed into PC USB or parallel port and needs the HASP Device Driver
to be installed on same computer. The Software License Key is 16-character alphanumeric "computer-dependent" string, provided
after purchasing the OMRON Ethernet Direct DAServer. Without HASP key installed or Software License Key entered, the OMRON Ethernet Direct DAServer
will run 1-hour in demo mode with all features supported.
After installing a DAServer on a computer with other Wonderware FactorySuite products, the following applies:
Note: ArchestrA™ products, such as
InTouch™ 8.0 or greater, do not require any installation/uninstall
order with the DAServers.
At the time of
this release, InTouch, Version 7.11 with Patch 05a or greater, and Wonderware FactorySuite 2000 I/O Servers, previously released with
Although DAServers can communicate with multiple client protocols at
the same time, you should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the
technologies used for any particular protocol. For example, the OPC Data Access
protocol is based on Microsoft COM/DCOM technology. The DCOM technology has an
inherent pinging mechanism that requires six (6) minutes before a DCOM
connection is declared as timed-out. As a result, there may be a chance that
when the DAServer is connected remotely with an OPC
client and the network is interrupted, a delay of six (6) minutes may be
experienced in the OPC client program before declaring the connection to the DAServer a failure.
Please note
that this is expected; the DAServer remains active
and continues to provide data connectivity to other clients that have good
network connections. More information on the DCOM pinging mechanism can be
found in Sections 2.5 and 2.5.1 of the specifications Distributed Component
Object Model Protocol ... DCOM/1.0 from Microsoft.
The computer name used by NetBIOS is
limited in length to MAX_COMPUTERNAME_LENGTH (for instance, the limitation is
16 characters for Windows NT 4.0). That is why, when installing a DAServer on a computer with a long name (that is, "My_Very_Long_Computer_Name"), you may have issues
accessing the DAServer diagnostics.
After installing this DAServer, the pre-existing WWLogger™
output will be redirected to the new Log Viewer.
When installed on a Windows 2000
operating system, the first time the DAServer is
activated, a "server busy" message may appear. Subsequent activation
of the DAServer will not produce this message.
The DAServer
performance may be impaired if the CPU utilization reaches and remains at 100%;
the DAServer may then become user-unresponsive.
Modifying the Default Update
Interval, while the DAServer is communicating with a
PLC, will not take effect until the current update interval has completed.
Attempting to rename a Device Group
with the same name but different case (upper or lower) will fail. Device Groups are case insensitive and, therefore, treat
upper and lower cases of a character as the same character.
System items do not show in the DAServer Manager Diagnostics, unless a client subscribes to
them.
The DAServer
Manager does not automatically refresh when the DAServer
on a remote node is uninstalled or has gone off-line/online.
The DAServers
allow both out-of-proc (remote) and in-proc (local) connections to exist
simultaneously. Only one instance, either in-proc or out-proc, should be
allowed to run at any given time for one DAServer.
The $SYS$WriteComplete
system tag does not display the correct value following an InTouch reinitialize
I/O during a recipe download.
Transaction status (completed/error)
was not passed to the OPC Plug-in during a node tear-down and rebuilt,
resulting in the OPC Plug-in timing out 10 minutes later. After the node was
rebuilt, a Read transaction was completed successfully with 0 (zero) items
according to the server diagnostics. However, the OPC client did not get any
acknowledgement until 10 minutes later when the OPC Plug-in timed out.
The Hot Configuration operations do
not leave their corresponding messages in the Log Viewer.
Significant performance degradation
in accessing the configuration view of a device node under the DAServer Manager SMC will occur with more than 1,000 Device
Items defined.
If DAServer
configuration file does not exist and DAServer global
parameters are not configured, then after configuration of DAServer
the new configuration file is created. This new configuration file doesn't
include DAServer global parameters configuration and
actual used DAServer global parameters may be
different between which are shown in configuration dialog.
DAServer
If DAServer
is activated as inproc server or handler then
deactivation from DAServer Manager is not allowed. If
DAServer is activated as outproc
server then deactivation from DAServer Manager will
(may) not work.
If DAServer
is not configured as a Service and activated, then DDE Clients cannot connect
to DAServer. SuiteLink and outproc OPC Clients are able to connect.
Configured Device Groups cannot be
used by OPC Clients. OPC Clients can use only the <Default> Device Group.
Device Group properties Read Mode
and Write Mode are not hot configurable.
If OPC Client activates a new item,
then all already active items for a short time may receive a bad quality. The
good quality and value are next time received by OPC Client when item value is
updated from device.
If there are more than 10 pending
write messages then poke is refused and warning is logged to Log Viewer. The
limit of pending write messages is not configurable.
Uninstallation of DAServer
does not ensure deleting of all created registry keys.
Controller Series and Controller
Type configuration items are not Hot configurable.
When browsing Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer OPC items, the OPC Client will see only the first
and last addresses of PLC data areas.
String value to be written to PLC
must have the exact length. Otherwise the item value is rejected. For example,
for string item D10-D12C the write value "AAA" will be rejected, but
the value "BBBBBB" - not rejected, so when writing the new value for
item D10-D12C the length of string must be 6 characters.
Simulation mode is not implemented.
The Klinkmann Omron
Ethernet Direct DAServer is a Microsoft Windows
application program that acts as a communications protocol server and allows
other Windows application programs to access the data directly from OMRON
Programmable Controllers (PLCs) over the OMRON
Ethernet network, no additional Omron software needed. The Omron Ethernet
Direct DAServer requires an Ethernet card and TPC/IP
protocol installed on the computer to communicate with the Ethernet network.
The Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer can access the
data from Controllers connected to the Ethernet System directly (with Ethernet
Unit installed) or from Controllers interconnected to Ethernet System through
SYSMAC NET network or SYSMAC LINK network (through PLC Gateway - an OMRON
Controller which has multiple Communications Units mounted (which includes the
Ethernet Unit) and therefore that belongs to two networks and can thus function
as an interface between them).
While the Omron Ethernet
Direct DAServer is primarily intended for use with
the Wonderware FactorySuite™ 2000 and FactorySuite A2™, it may be used with any
Microsoft Windows program capable of acting as a DDE, FastDDE,
SuiteLink™, or OPC DA client.
The Klinkmann Omron
Ethernet Direct DAServer documentation set includes
the following guides:
1.
Klinkmann DAServer
Installation Guide.
This online Help provides information on installing the DAServer,
including options for installing all components of the system or just
individual ones. These include the DAServer Manager
(including configuration components of the DAServer),
the DAServer (including OPC protocol capabilities),
and the DDE/SuiteLink Plug-In (for communicating with
the legacy Wonderware products). This Help file can be accessed from Omron
Ethernet Direct DAServer installation package as Install-KlinkmannDAS.chm.
2.
Klinkmann Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer User's Guide. This guide describes the user interface and
functions of the Klinkmann Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer.
The Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer User's Guide is
provided in two different formats: 1) as online Help file, which can be
accessed from Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer
installation package as DASOmronEth.chm and 2)
as Adobe's PDF file, which can be accessed from Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer installation package as 17014m10.PDF.
The following other
documents can be obtained from Wonderware and would be necessary to use the
Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer (these documents are
usually included in installation package of any Wonderware own DAServer and provided in the PDF form (except Change
Network Account Online Help) and can be printed; they are available in the
Wonderware DAServer installation package or CD-ROM
directory \UserDocs\English):
3.
Change Network Account Online Help. This Help documentation describes
the tool you can use to manage credentials for node-to-node communications
between ArchestrA™ components. This documentation can be accessed from the
application's Help.
4.
Protocols Guide. This guide provides background
information on the main protocols used between components of the Wonderware
products. A protocol is the set of rules and standards for enabling computers
to connect and exchange data over the network. This guide also includes
information on setting up and using some of these protocols. The Protocols
Guide filename is Protocol.pdf.
5.
DAServer Manager User's Guide. This documentation describes the runtime Configuration, Diagnostics,
and Activation/Deactivation aspects of a Data Access Server (DAServer). These aspects of any DAServer
are maintained through the generic component called the DAServer
Manager. The DAServer Manager User's Guide filename
is DAServerManager.pdf
6.
License Utility Guide. This guide describes the FactorySuite 2000 (Version 7.1) licensing strategy and
explains how to use the License Utility to install license files and browse
valid license files on the network. The License Utility Guide filename is LicenseUtility.pdf
7.
LogFlag Editor User's Guide. This documentation describes the user interface and functions of the LogFlag Editor utility. This utility can be opened only
from the Log Viewer, a part of the System Management Console suite of
utilities. The LogFlag Editor User's Guide filename
is LogFlagEditor.pdf
8.
Log Viewer User's Guide. This guide provides information
about the Logger™ and the Log Viewer snap-in to the System Management Console.
The Log Viewer User's Guide filename is LogViewer.pdf
The documentation
describing how to use this product is provided in PDF format. Viewing these
guides requires the installation of the Adobe's Acrobat Reader. This utility is
not included in Klinkmann Omron Ethernet Direct DAServer
installation package, but it can be downloaded for free from the Adobe Web site
at the following Web address:
www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
After downloading the file
from Adobe, you must run the executable to install it on your computer. Follow
the typical installation routine. After installation, you can either open the
Acrobat Reader and select a user's guide from the File menu, or double-click a user's
guide in Windows Explorer.