PI Enterprise Server (3.x) Overview

Component Summary
The PI Server is the heart of the PI System. It acquires and routes data in real time throughout the PI System and your entire information infrastructure. Operators, engineers, managers, and other plant personnel can connect to the PI Server and view manufacturing data from PI DataStorage or from external data storage systems, which means your entire company works from a common set of real data.

You can connect the PI Server to almost any existing automation, lab, or information system. With the PI Server infrastructure, your data become instantly available for limitless analysis, simplified reporting, and clearer visual monitoring. The PI Server seamlessly connects to PI DataStorage, to non-PI data sources, such as OLEDB providers (e.g., SQL Server or Oracle), to proprietary systems (e.g., PHD and CIM/21), or to any other supported database.

You can also unite your legacy non-PI data systems with any PI application through COM Connectors. These conduits allow all your data sources to communicate through the PI infrastructure, making all your manufacturing data available to the PI System.

Technical Overview
The PI System is a set of software modules for enterprise-wide monitoring and analysis. The PI Server is the foundation of this system. It acts as a data server for OSIsoft’s Microsoft Windows-based client applications. Operators, engineers, managers, and other plant personnel use a variety of client applications to connect to PI Server to view production data stored in PI DataStorage or in external data archive systems. While data in the PI Server is usually retrieved from PI DataStorage, the Windows-based version of the PI Server is also capable of interacting with process data stored in data archiving systems other than PI.

Data may be retrieved (but will not be duplicated within the PI System) from foreign data-storage systems using COM Connectors (based on Microsoft's Component Object Model technology).

The PI Server is built for speed and efficiency, allowing the PI System to withstand high client connection loads and still archive data that constantly stream in from PI Interfaces and COM Connectors.

Additionally, the PI Server balances the storage load by holding fresh, real-time values from PI Interfaces in an incoming cache before determining whether they should be written to PI DataStorage, to a legacy data storage product (through COM Connectors), or discarded.

Since the PI Server is typically used in production systems where correct and reliable operation is important, a number of security mechanisms are available to protect against willful or accidental tampering with the system. The security model built into PI, called PI Point Security, ensures point-by-point control over data, allowing access only to users and groups that correspond to specified tag configuration information. PI Point Security can be linked to Windows Authentication through a "trust table," ensuring users have consistent rights across PI and Windows networks.

The PI Server also supports audit trail reporting to help companies create an environment that complies with the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11 requirements.