Hi,

I have redundant pair of WinCC v7.3 Update 1 Servers and multiple WinCC Clients which I'd like to start automatically with Windows. The problem is that according to the WinCC Redundancy Configuration manual a specific order must be followed to activate redundancy. It says (from the manual):

1. Activate initially the configured Master server.
2. Next start up the connected clients.
3. When the clients are active, activate the second server and its connected clients.

Note

Please note during startup of redundant servers that the first server must be started completely prior to activating the redundant partner. During initial startup of servers, no clients must be active. Once you have completely deactivated a redundant server pair, you must adhere to a specific sequence during reactivation. Activate the server first which was the last server to be deactivated. Once this server has been completed started, you can activate the redundant partner.

Short from writing a script to start WinCC runtime on each computer it a specific order as given in the manual is there a better way to have our SCADA start automatically in redundant mode?? Without user input.

When starting the computers manually in the correct order everything works fine, so I can safely say my redundancy configuration settings is applied correctly. 

Has anyone else ran into this problem? How have you solved it?

Hello,

to ensure correct starting it's not only the task to wait some time  because you do not know if how long you have to wait.

I would suggest following:

1. Start application 1. This app creates a file on a server in a specific directory.

2. batch-process checks if this file is existing

3. batch-process starts next app which creates next file in specific directory.

4. batch-process checks if this file is existing

and so on  till your system is up correctly.

This procedure has been standard in former centuries when you had to start client-server-MSDOS systems. It's not so easy to design this batch-file as described here but it's the best way. The only tricky thing is that you have to ensure correct file-creation/file-deletion if your app crashes.

Regards

Georg

Thanks Garchla, I agree I can't just wait for x seconds before starting so I ended up implementing a VBScript to start my computers in the correct order. This seems to be working fine.  

Hi Brenton,

Is it possible for you to share your vbscript and tell us how you managed to do it?

I am facing the same difficulty but my expierence is not that much.

Would appreciate it alot!

Thanks