PI Server on VMS (2.x) System Requirements

System and Hardware

• System: HP/Compaq (formerly Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)) and
  OpenVMS (VAX or Alpha) computers.
• Disk and memory requirements: Depend on PI System sizing parameters; mainly the maximum tag count.
• Maximum tag count: Between 1,000 and 100,000 tags.
• CPU power and memory determine the number of simultaneous users that PI can handle comfortably. The more powerful DEC computers can handle well over 100 PI users.

The design questionnaire you fill out when you buy a PI system provides recommendations for memory and disk space. (The PI 2 Design Questionnaire is a spreadsheet also available from the Download Center.  You may also refer to the system planning information found in the PI 2 Installation and Upgrade Handbook.)

PI supports the VT200 and VT300 terminal families from DEC. DEC Workstations and any standard XWindows terminals are supported via an XWindows driver. It also supports the Tektronix 4100 and 4200 series terminals. Personal computers can be used with emulators of one of the terminal types. See the Terminal Setup Appendix of the PI2 manual (DA section) for a list of supported terminals. This appendix also explains how to configure each terminal type.

PI has interfaces to most of the major distributed control systems as well as several programmable controllers and minicomputers. This web site maintains a list of the currently offered interfaces to PI.  The interface manuals may be viewed or downloaded from the web site.  Contact OSI for the current interface list.

Software Requirements

• VAX computers, PI works with any version of OpenVMS from version 6.1, 6.2, 7.1 and on.
• Alpha computers, PI works with version 6.1 on except version 7.0.
• Distributed interface nodes (PINet) require a DECNet end node or TCP/IP license.  (PINet nodes may use either TCP/IP or DECNet networking to connect to the PI2 server.  However, redundant, failover interfaces require DECNet.)  For more information, refer to the PI Installation and Upgrade Handbook.

Optional PI Modules

The PI System consists of several modules. The Data Archive and Trend modules described in this manual are part of every system. Optional modules are:

GP - Graphics Package - Create custom graphic displays with live data, bar graphs, and trends.
PE - Performance Equations - Perform calculations using any tags and save the results in the archive.
EL - Event Logger - Save and query text messages.
MI - Manual Input - Create screens for manual data entry.
DL - PC Download - Create text files of archive data and send those files to a personal computer.
AN - Analysis - Query archive data, perform calculations, display trends, histograms, X-Y plots, and SQC charts.
SQ - Real-Time Statistical Quality Control - Create SQC calculations and charts with alarms and operator comments.
RW - Report Writer -Create custom reports with a powerful text file format.
AL - Alarm - Send high, low, and deviation alarm messages to users.
PD - Profile Display - View arrays of tags as bar graphs and other formats.
IR - Interactive Report Writer - Create screens with tabular summary data including averages, totals, and standard deviations.
WS - Workstation Support - Support XWindow terminals.
IN - Instrument and Computer Interfaces - Collect data from other sources and send data to those systems. There are dozens of interface types; each is a separate module.
NT - PINet - Run interfaces on a different computer from PI. Most interfaces can be on another node.
TK - Programmer's Toolkit - Write programs for models, custom displays, process control, etc.