December 01, 2011 | IGSS News
Use the Configuration Installation report to improve IGSS communication efficiency
The Configuration Installation report generated when you install the configuration from the Definition module is designed to give you an overview of the vital statistics of the configuration, allowing you to fine-tune and adjust the configuration prior to encountering issues and problems with the configuration in a real-time and live-data situation.
When installing your configuration from the Definition module by clicking File > Check and Install (if the configuration is stopped) or File > Check and Update (if the configuration is running), the Installation Options form appears, allowing you to define how you want the Configuration Installation report to sort the objects in your configuration.
You can also run the Check and Install from the Design and Setup tab in the IGSS Master.
In the Installation Options form, you can select to sort the objects by:
- PLC Address
- Alarm number
- Object Type
as well as set the Configuration Installation report up to display detailed object information.
Note
| You can hide the Installation Options form by selecting the Skip this dialog check box in the Installation Options form.
To display the Installation Options form again, press the Shift key when
clicking the Check and Install button on the Design and Setup tab in
the IGSS Master. When the Installation Options form is opened, you can
clear the Skip this dialog check box.
|
You can also set up the Configuration Installation report to
- skip missing images
- skip driver setup errors.
- skip the Configuration Installation report and install the configuration or
- skip the installation and generate the Configuration Installation report.
You can typically use the last option to run a check of your configuration prior to installing it.
When the Configuration Installation report is generated, it is by default saved in the configuration main folder and is named given the configuration name and the file extension .prt.
The Configuration Installation report is a text file and can be read and edited using any text editor such as Wordpad, Notepad, Textpad, etc.
You can use the Configuration Installation report to gain an overview of all of the objects in the configuration, displaying the objects sorted by name, PLC address, Alarm number and /or object type.
You can also see all the objects in the configuration listed by their Scan and Base classes, gain an overview of the resource usage (objects, scan records, data groups, atom, alarm texts and data reduction methods) of the configuration and see a summary of the station and driver setup of the configuration.
Finally, you can use the Configuration Installation report to get an estimate of the communication efficiency of your configuration.
PLC Communication Efficiency Information
The PLC communication efficiency information is located near the end of the Configuration Installation report.
You can use the communication efficiency information to analyze and optimize PLC communication, using the communication parameter values and the number of scan records as indicators of the overall communication performance of your IGSS configuration.
The communication efficiency is measured in two parameters:
- Number of bits used for objects
- Total number of words in scan records
In order to obtain effective communication efficiency in IGSS, the parameter values should be as close to 100 as possible. As a rule of thumb, data should be packed as much as possible in the data register in order to achieve communication efficiency in IGSS.
Number of bits used for objects
The parameter expresses how effectively the bits used for IGSS objects have been packed within the data words read by IGSS. If the bits have been packed effectively, the parameter value will be close to 100.
The parameter is calculated using the following formula:
(Number of bits used / Total number of bits available) x 100
- Number of bits used: The number of data bits used by objects in the IGSS configuration.
- Total number of bits available: The total number of data bits that potentially could be used by objects in the IGSS configuration.
If the parameter value is above 100%, this means some PLC addresses are not unique and data words and bits are being overwritten and reused by the process.
Total number of words in scan records
The parameter expresses how many relevant data words IGSS has read within a scan record. This parameter can indicate if the PLC addressing can be optimized. A parameter value close to 100% indicates that PLC address scanning is fast and efficient.
The parameter is calculated using the following formula:
(Total number of words / Possible number of words with the same number of scan records) x 100
- Total number of words: Total number of words in a data scan that are used for IGSS objects
- Possible number of words with the same number of scan records: Total number of words in a data scan that can be used for IGSS objects
Number of Scan records
You can also see the number of scan records used by IGSS in the PLC communication efficiency information.
Fixing performance and efficiency issues
While you cannot use the Configuration Installation report to analyze and fix each and every object in the configuration, you can use the information in the report as an indicator of the general performance capability and efficiency of the configuration.
The Configuration Installation report does not by default contain detailed object information but you can enable this setting in the Installation Options form to gain a more detailed overview of the PLC mapping and alarm mappings of the objects in the configuration.
If you want to adjust and fix any potential performance issues with an object’s data mapping, you must do so manually, either for the object itself or for a group of objects through the Property Table Viewer form.