Control Architect releases starting with R4.x deploy a Server for maintaining configuration files, graphic files and their Asset models. The original data model was pure file based, which resulted in having to maintain hundreds of thousands of configuration files in folders on your system. This also resulted in system performance issues when anti-virus applications were required to scan this huge file load.
A new server based document model is now deployed and used in Control Architect. This is a non-relational database typically referred to as a Document database. The database technology that was chosen is a commercial scalable product named MongoDB. During installation a local instance of this Server technology is installed. Users can choose to scale this to a Corporate Server or Cloud installation for an Enterprise model. This product does not require any additional licensing unless you choose to scale to an Enterprise model.
A MongoDB administration tool named Compass is installed to help administer the MongoDB database. This product does not require any additional licensing unless you choose to scale to an Enterprise model.
With the move to this new Document model, it is much easier for users to manage their versions of PKS configuration projects.
PKS XML configuration and SCADA configuration files are convert to and stored as XML files in the new document server
HMIWeb graphic files are stored in the new document server.
Control Architect supports a Database/Collection model for storing configuration data. A Database should represent a single PKS Server and will typically be named similar to the Server or Process Unit name such as "VPS" for a Crude unit or "DCU" for a DeCoker unit, etc. A Collection represents a version of PKS XML configuration files that were exported from a PKS Server. A Database may contain multiple Collections or versions of exported configuration files. You will typically name your Collections to include both the Process Unit name and time stamp of the configuration file set. New Database collections that are created are referenced using the format DatabaseName:CollectionName where a ':' character separates the database name and collection name components. A typical Database:Collection name would be formatted as in "VPS:VPS_20170110".
During the import process your PKS configuration source files are moved to the Document database and Asset models are generated and also stored to the same database. Configuration entities and graphic source files can later be exported from within Control Architect to generate their original XML and binary based *.cnf.xml/*.bcd files that can be imported back into your PKS Server using Control Builder. HMIWeb Graphic files cannot also be exported to their original file contents.
