PI ACE Overview

PI Advanced Computing Engine (PI ACE) provides an environment for developers - novice to professional - to create calculations using data from the PI System. Users have created calculations to aggregate metrics; perform heat and material balances, data reconciliation, realtime cost accounting and batch summaries. PI ACE can be used to integrate with third party systems including data transfer and alarming and for just about any application that does not require user intervention.

PI ACE consists of three components: Scheduler, Manager, and Wizard.

• The PI ACE scheduler allows for calculations to be executed at predefined intervals or as data events are received.
• The PI ACE manager allows for control of calculations including the ability to apply a calculation to multiple assets through configuration
• The PI ACE wizard assists in the configuration of the calculation and mapping to the PI System to allow the user to focus on the calculation logic.

Version 2.x allows users to develop calculations in Visual Basic .NET; Version 1.x allows users to develop calculations in Visual Basic 6.

While PI ACE provides flexibility in developing custom code for calculations, those who wish to minimize custom coding should consider using PI Asset Framework with Asset Analytics to perform calculations using data from the PI System. It provides an easy-to-use configuration experience with a rich set of built-in functions, which affords users a convenient way to create both simple and complex calculations. Asset analytics features includes native capabilities to perform rollups for aggregation and generate event frames to capture important events in real time.