Delivery Release: SIMATIC WinCC/Connectivity Pack V6.0

Effective immediately, the product

• SIMATIC WinCC/Connectivity Pack V6.0

is released for delivery in all ZNs and LGs.
Please note that the Connectivity Pack REQUIRES WinCC V6 SP1 or WinCC V6 SP1 ASIA.

1.0 Objective

With WinCC V6, steps are taken to further integrate information from the process and the production into business processes. Production processes are no longer strictly separated from the remaining infrastructure of a company. More and more often, production computers are connected to the company Intranet. To further increase the efficiency of a production, it is necessary to make relevant production data available online to other processes, so that they can react instantly to it. (Example 1: The number of operating cycles of a machine is the input variable used by a maintenance management program to plan service cycles and automatically reorder consumables. Example 2: Power/heat/water consumption figures are forwarded online to a financial system to charge cost centers and to generate invoices).
Common to all of these applications is that the data origination and the analysis are often physically separated. Thus, it is required to transmit relevant data from the SCADA systems to remote analysis systems. The option package SIMATIC WinCC/Connectivity Pack V6.0 addresses the above scenario.

2.0 Components of the Connectivity Pack V6.0

The option package WinCC/Connectivity Pack specifically addresses the requirements of system integrators and end users with in-house engineering departments. It includes standardized programming interfaces, on which third-party applications can be built on. Through the necessary programming, the user obtains the highest possible flexibility in exchanging WinCC data with third-party applications.
The licensed Connectivity Pack interfaces are:

• OPC Alarm & Event Server
• OPC Historical Data Access Server
• WinCC OLE-DB Provider
  (Microsoft OLE-DB Provider for SQL2000/ODBC - NOT yet released within the Connectivity Pack V6.0!)

The included OPC servers make it easy to integrate standard components of external providers.

3.0 Functions of the WinCC/Connectivity Pack V6.0

3.1 Delivery Scope
The WinCC/Connectivity Pack consists of 2 CD-ROMs and an authorization disk. The Connectivity Pack CD-ROM contains one installation program for the Connectivity Pack Server and another one for the Connectivity Pack Client. On the second CD-ROM, the MS SQL Server 2000 with the SP3 is supplied.

The Connectivity Pack Server is generally installed on a WinCC RT machine. It contains all necessary components to access this WinCC machine via the interfaces listed at 2.1.
In addition, the Connectivity Pack Server can also be loaded onto a long-term archiving server (LAS) without a WinCC installation. It then provides access to the WinCC archives located on the LAS via the OLE-DB. In this case, the SQL 2000 Server SP3 will also be loaded during the installation (no access via OPC A&E or OPC HDA will be possible, since they require an operational WinCC Runtime system).

The Connectivity Pack Client is used for the installation of the WinCC OLE-DB Provider and other necessary components onto a client WITHOUT a WinCC installation and WITHOUT an SQL server installation.
If a WinCC V6 SP1 installation is already present on the client, NO installation of the Connectivity Pack Client is required on this machine.

The CD-ROM also contains the documentation in two languages (German, English) and two application examples. One application example shows a Visual Basic application that remotely accesses WinCC database tables. The other example is implemented as a WinCC project, where the necessary calls are made from the WinCC Visual Basic Script. The examples are annotated and included in the source code.
A printed version of the documentation is not available.

3.2 Setup
Access to a standard WinCC RT Machine
The Connectivity Pack can be installed on any WinCC RT machine (not WinCC clients) possessing Version 6.0 SP1 or higher. It enables the simultaneous access of multiple clients to the WinCC database. In this case, it does not matter whether the calling client applications run locally on the same machine or on a remote computer. The network between the client and the server must support TCP/IP and not block DCOM connections through firewalls.

Access to a central Long-Term Archiving Server (LAS)
The Connectivity Pack can also be installed on a long-term archiving server (without WinCC). The server setup first installs the SQL server with the WinCC-specific profile. Following that, the Archive Connector (included in the delivery scope of the Connectivity Pack) will be started. With it, WinCC databases swapped out to the LAS (from different subordinated WinCC projects) can be manually connected to the SQL server and also be disconnected again. In addition, the Archive Connector also permits an automatic connection of all WinCC database files that were copied into special folders of the LAS. In this case, it is assumed that the archiving to exactly this folder of the LAS has been configured on the subordinated WinCC stations. Whenever an archive database from WinCC is copied to the LAS, it is automatically connected to the SQL server by the Archive Connector and becomes accessible via the Connectivity Pack interfaces.
In principle, it is possible for multiple subordinated WinCC stations to archive to the same LAS but into DIFFERENT folders.
In this case as well, the client application can have access locally or via a network.

3.3 Installation Requirements
Hardware Requirements

Software Requirements
At the Connectivity Pack Server/Client, the following should be installed:

• Windows 2000 SP3 or
• Windows XP SP1
• Where necessary, WinCC V6.0 SP1

For the installation on a WinCC V6 SP1 ASIA machine, the data listed there applies (delivery release will follow shortly).

3.4 Available Data
The Connectivity Pack provides access to the following WinCC data:

• Online alarms and messages (via OPC A&E on the WinCC RT machine; reading and acknowledging)
• Historical alarms (via WinCC OLE-DB on the WinCC RT machine and the LAS; reading)
• Historical process values (via OPC HDA on the WinCC RT machine; reading)
• Historical process values (via WinCC OLE-DB on the WinCC RT machine and the LAS; reading)

Access to data of the user archives is currently not possible.

While accessing process data via the WinCC OLE-DB returns pure raw data from the archives, the access via the OPC HDA gives the client the option of requesting already more concentrated data (e.g. standard deviation, median values over time, etc.) from the server. This reduces the engineering work for the user and the data quantity on the network.

3.5 Licensing
The WinCC Connectivity Pack is authorized via the "WinCC/Connectivity Pack" authorization disk. This license is only required on the PC, whose data interfaces are to be accessed.
The license does not differentiate among the number and type of simultaneous accesses.
A Connectivity Pack license is also required, if the client application (OPC client or database client) runs locally on the same computer as the Connectivity Pack server.

In addition, each Connectivity Pack client (CP client) must be licensed via a WinCC CAL. This applies to CP clients on which no licensed installation of WinCC, the Web Navigator, IndustrialDataBridge, Audit or Dat@Monitor is present (these products already come with a corresponding CAL). This CAL always applies to a SINGLE CP client. With it, this client can access any number of Connectivity Pack servers.
For applications with many accessing clients or in which the number of clients cannot be determined/limited (e.g. when publishing archive data via a Web server), a processor-based CAL can be employed. This CAL always applies to one processor of a SINGLE WinCC RT machine/LAS. For more information, please consult the delivery release for WinCC/CAL (see 17624114).

3.6 Use with WinCC ASIA
The WinCC/Connectivity Pack V6.0 is also released for use with WinCC V6 SP1 ASIA (data and installation; above mentioned application scenarios). The system environments applicable to this can be found in the delivery release for WinCC V6 SP1 ASIA (delivery release will follow shortly).
The user interface, however, is not available in the Asian languages.

4.0 Delivery Scope and Ordering Data

The ordering data for WinCC V6.0 SP1 and WinCC/CAL can be found in the corresponding Delivery Releases (see 17066503 and 17624114).