PI OPC DA, has a dependacy on the AF sdk and client. this is not nessasary and only causes confusion. we should roll this back to a pure pi sdk requirement just like OPC HDA.
The dependency on AF SDK is not for assets per se, but rather the use of the RDA (Rich Data Access) functionalities of the AF SDK. RDA greatly improves the performance of accessing time series data from the PI Data Archive. The RDA functions of the AF SDK is many times more performing than the PI SDK for similar functionalities. For details, please consult the AF SDK help files.
The issue here is that PI OPC DA Server is made dependent on AF SDK but the installation does not include the AF SDK. As such, users need to install AF Client just to have the AF SDK installed (there is no installation kit specifically just for AFSDK). Furthermore, in order to add PI Data Archive that the PI OPC DA Server is supposed to connect to, they have to use PI System Explorer and users were having issue with opening the PSE since they do not have an active connection to an AF Server since the port is not opened (there was no reason to open a port from PI OPC DA Server to AF Server since it cannot retrieve data from AF Server). There are other workarounds to this, but it would be good to provide an easier option for users to install and manage their PI Data Archive without having to search and install other utilities.
Hi Stephen,
If that is indeed the case then more needs to be done to have an independant AF SDK installer and configuration utility. Really this should be something that is thought through before introducing such a dependancy. OPC DA is a base level tool mostly installed for real time applications in secure networks, being forced to expose further network ports that are not strictly required is not best practice. I hope that this is thought through before simlar changes are concidered to OPC HDA which has a much more predominant footprint.
Hi Julian, William:
It seems I misread the original request. I did not read it as a request for the OPC DA Server. For some reason I read it as a request for the the OPC interface. Thank you for the additional context to the original post. This really helps me better understand what you were describing in your original post.
In terms of the AF Client installer, it does allow you to only install the AF SDK. You simply need to select only the AF SDK during the installation process. In terms of the process to add a PI Data Archive, when you "Add" it, you're adding the necessary information to the KST (Known Servers Table). While you can certainly do this using PI System Explorer, you can also use any PI SDK based application, such as PI SMT to "Add" a server.
Hope this helps.
