Common Questions & Answers

In a typical scenario a client is connected to an instance of ACM. When failover is necessary, the client will disconnect from ACM which causes the ACM service to stop.  The behavior is accomplished by the ACM Auto-Shutdown feature on the $Server object in ACM.  If this feature is enabled, the ACM service will stop when the last client disconnects from the service.  This action allows another instance of ACM to start up without port locking issues.

In a like manner, when a client connects to ACM, it will cause the service to start as is expected with any OPC server.

If the client control cannot be used then it is necessary to manually control the ACM service.  It is important to note that at no time should more than one instance of the ACM server configuration run at the same time.

To Failover

• Before initiating a failover, issue the server command to Disable History Collection.
• Wait 5 minutes before failing over.
• Initiate the failover process.
• Ensure that history collection is enabled

To Fail Back

• Before failing back, issue the server command to Disable History Collection.
• Wait 5 minutes.
• Initiate the failover process.
• Ensure that history collection is enabled.

How can I determine the status of communication to a device?

OR

Is there an OPC item that shows the communication status for a device?

Each device in ACM has an OPC item called "Status". The Status item can have one of these values:

• 0 if no polls have been done
• 1 if the device was polled successfully – all messages received their responses
• 2 if the device was polled partially – one or more messages did not receive a response
• 3 if the device was interrupted during its poll
• 4 if the connection to the device failed, but there are still retry connection attempts available
• 5 if all connection attempts to the device failed
• 6 if the device refused its turn to poll (disabled or not licensed or some other error)
• 7 if the port is closed or disabled

There are two ways to get server information from ACM:

 Server Monitor

• On the Status tab,  click on the Server information… button.  The window will display the current Server Version, Start Time, Windows Version, and Components (Process, Module, Protocol, and Connection).
• Click on the Copy to Clipboard button to copy and paste the text version of the Server Information.

NOTE: The asiDATA service must be running to view server information.

 AutoSol Communication Manager (Configuration Manager)

• On the Tools menu option, select View Client/Server Info
• Expanding the Assemblies item to view server information.
• Click on the Copy to Clipboard button to paste the text version of the Server Information.