User Guide User Manual

FactoryTalk Historian To Historian Interface User Guide 147
SMT
SMT refers to System Management Tools. SMT is the program that you use for configuring
Historian Servers. A single copy of SMT manages multiple Historian Servers. SMT runs on
either a Historian Server Node or an interface node.
pipc.log
The pipc.log file is the file to which OSIsoft applications write informational and error
messages. When a Historian interface runs, it writes to the pipc.log file. The ICU allows
easy access to the pipc.log.
Point
The PI point is the basic building block for controlling data flow to and from the Historian
Server. For a given timestamp, a PI point holds a single value.
A PI point does not necessarily correspond to a “point” on the foreign device. For example, a
single “point” on the foreign device can consist of a set point, a process value, an alarm limit,
and a discrete value. These four pieces of information require four separate Historian Points.
Service
A Service is a Windows program that runs without user interaction. A Service continues to
run after you have logged off from Windows. It has the ability to start up when the computer
itself starts up.
The ICU allows you to configure a PI interface to run as a Service.
Tag (Input Tag and Output Tag)
The tag attribute of a PI point is the name of the PI point. There is a one-to-one
correspondence between the name of a point and the point itself. Because of this relationship,
FactoryTalk Historian System documentation uses the terms “tag” and “point”
interchangeably.
Interfaces read values from a device and write these values to an Input Tag. Interfaces use an
Output Tag to write a value to the device.