How To - Test iFIX & Historian Redundancy / Make edits to redundant iFIX SCADA Servers

Overview

This is a guide on how to test a redundant iFIX and Historian iFIX collector environment. As well as preforming development updates to a redundant iFIX server pair.

Pre-Requisites

iFIX 5.X redundant SCADA servers configured.
Historian collectors configured for redundancy.

Testing iFIX and Historian Redundancy

Open SCADASYNCMONITOR.exe on both secondary and Primary iFIX servers

Check which SCADA server is ACTIVE

Open Historian Administrator

Check which iFIX collector is in ACTIVE status

For this document I will assume that the Primary node is ACTIVE in both SCADASYNCMONITOR and Historian Administrator (iFIX collector)
With SCADASYNC monitor open Enable Maintenance Mode to make the Secondary SCADA node ACTIVE

Ensure all data is coming into iFIX

Within Historian Administrator Select Collectors > select Secondary iFIX collector > select Redundancy Tab > Make Active Collector Now

Navigate back to Main and ensure the Secondary collector is now Active and Primary collector is Standby
Navigate to Tags and ensure Tags are still collecting good data

We have now confirmed that the Secondary iFIX node should be able to run the SCADA environment and collect good Historical DATA without the Primary Node.

Ensure Maintenance Mode is no longer enabled.

If preforming development updates

When using Maintenance Mode, the following events must occur:

Make the secondary node the active node using the NSD fields. Wait for the iClient nodes to switch to the secondary node.
You place the primary node into Maintenance Mode by clicking the Enable Maintenance Mode button.
You enter your database changes on the primary node.
You take the primary node out of Maintenance Mode by clicking the Disable Maintenance Mode button.
The primary node becomes the active node. The secondary node becomes standby.
You save your database. The databases are re-synchronized.

If preforming a simulation of SCADA failure

To do this ensure the secondary node is still active within SCADASYNCMONITOR and Historian Administrator

Ensure Maintenance Mode is no longer enabled.

I.E. Primary Node is in Standby for both iFIX and Proficy Historian

Once that is complete SHUT DOWN the secondary node.
Within ~30 seconds the Primary SCADA node should become ACTIVE within SCADASYNCMONITOR and Historian administrator

Check iFIX Workspace and ensure that data is populating and there are no @@@ signs.
Check Historian Administrator > Tags to see data is collecting with a good value