The DIP API MANAGER

The DIP API manager can be configured as a DIP client and/or DIP server.

As a DIP client, the API manager will allow DIP publications (where the publication is of a primitive type) or a field within a publication (where the Publication is of a structured type) to provide data to WinCC OA DPE's. One Publication/Field may provide data for many DPE's. But one DPE may only obtain its data from one publication/field.

As a DIP Publisher, the API manager will allow one or more DPE's to be publisher via DIP as primitive or structured publications. One DPE may provide data for many Publications, and one publication may obtain data from many (unique) DPE's.

JCOP FW pannels exist to assist the user in configuring the DIP API manager in these client/publisher configurations.

Notes exist on:-

 

Release Notes

New features of fwDIP 8.0.0

Default DIP name server

As of fwDIP 8.0.0 (DIP 5.6.0), the default DIP Name Server is set to dipnsdev.cern.ch for development purposes.
To enable connection to the default CERN Technical Network DIP name servers, you must set the API manager's dns argument to :

E.g. : -dns "dipns1,dipns2"

To enable connection to the default CERN General Purpose Network DIP name servers, you must set the API manager's dns argument to :

E.g. : -dns "dipnsgpn1,dipnsgpn2"

Alternatively, you can use any default DIP mechanism (such as the DIPNS environment variable) to set the default DIP name server.

IMPORTANT - Please ensure that you do not include space characters in the dns argument or the DIPNS environment variable, as WinCC OA will consider anything after the space character as part of another API manager argument.

New features of fwDIP 3.4.3

Optionally disable DPE locking

As of fwDIP 3.4.2, the API manager would lock any WinCC OA DPE mapped to a DIP subscription, in order to avoid DPE becoming invalid because of conflicting timestamps.

In fwDIP 3.4.3, It is now possible to disable the locking behaviour with the following API manager flag

E.g. : -no_dpe_locking

WARNING - disabling DPE locking is not supported in a production environment. Please refer to bug DIP-44 for more details about the possible effects.

New features of fwDIP 3.4.2

Specifying the usage of correction values for outdated DIP timestamps

As of fwDIP 3.4.2, when a DIP data packets arrives with a timestamp which is anterior to the last DPE update, fwDIP will force the DPE timestamp to current time, and optionally publish a correction value (provided archiving is active for the corresponding DPE).

E.g. : -publish_correction_values

For convenience, there is a trace in the WinCC OA log when command line argument is used:

E.g.: WCCOAdip The -publish_correction_values flag was specified, ....

Specifying whether invalid ranges should invalidate DIP publications

As of fwDIP 3.4.1, DPE flagged with invalid ranges would cause the corresponding DIP publication to receive the quality BAD. As of fwDIP 3.4.2, this behaviour is now optional, and can be deactivated (to revert to pre-3.4.1 behaviour).

E.g. : -ignore_invalid_ranges

For convenience, there is a trace in the WinCC OA log when command line argument is used:

E.g.: WCCOAdip The -ignore_invalid_ranges flag was specified, we will not consider WinCC OA range invalidity to mark a DIP publication with BAD quality. ....

New features of fwDIP 3.2.0

Specifying the DNS

You could specify a specific DNS to the DIP API Manager using the -dns command line argument,  followed by the name(s) of the DNS(s).

E.g. : -dns pcitco161

Note that standard DNS lists are supported as well but should be put in doublequotes:

E.g. : -dns "pcitco161,pcitco151,pcitco110"

For convenience, there is a trace in the WinCC OA log when command line argument is used:

E.g.: WCCOAdip [...], INFO, [...] Connecting to the DNS specified on the command line: pcitco161,pcitco122

New delimiter in DIP publication configuration

In previous versions of fwDIP, a special character (0x1a) was used as a delimeter in the DIP publication information stored in the WinCC OA internal data points. This caused problems when exporting this information using the WinCC OA ASCII manager. As of fwDIP 3.2.0, a new delimeter is supported. This is the exclamation mark, !.

When you install fwDIP 3.2.0 or later, all your configuration will be moved to use this new delimeter. If you previously used ! in your DIP publications names (or tag names) you will have to use the fwDIP panel to correct this. It is no longer possible to publish DIP items (or tags) from WinCC OA that contain the ! character.