PARCalarm Server Summary and Overview

This information is specific to the latest release of PARCview:

7.2.x

PARCalarm Server evaluates all PARCview alarms, determines their state, records events to the database, and sends email notifications. It runs on a one minute cycle. Changes to Alarm Configuration within PARCview will be applied automatically, but changes to other relevant information such as process filter tags and SQC limits will require restarting PARCalarm Server to be applied. The main uses of the PARCalarm Server console are to view the current status of alarms, trouble shoot and test email notifications, and redetect alarms. Redetection deletes any existing alarm event data for a specific time period and recalculates all of the events. This can be used to backfill or to re-process alarm data.

PARCSecurity Permissions

There are no PARCsecurity Console permissions for PARCalarm Server.

Configuration

PARCalarm Server Console

The PARCalarm Server console shows the alarm status of each alarm tag. The Last Process Time is the most recent cycle time. The Last Time Config Read is the last time the alarm configuration was refreshed to pick up configuration changes. The Number Tags Read is the number of alarm tags configured. The rectangular box in the top right displays messages related to alarm detection.

Ribbon Bar

If the ribbon bar is not visible, right click in the menu header and uncheck “Minimize the Ribbon”.

• Find Alarm: Opens a search tool to find a specific alarm or alarm type. Type the search text and click the Find button. Repeatedly clicking Find will proceed through the list of tags.
• Manage Events: Opens the Manage Alarm Events window where Alarms can be redetected.
• Save Logging Config: Saves the notification logging settings for all alarms so logging will continue after a server restart. The default storage location for the settings is AlarmServerLog.config in “C:\Program Files\Capstone\PARCAlarmServer”.
• Reset Logging Config: Deletes logging configuration settings so that the log file only displays basic information like server startup and cycle start and end.

Manage Events

Right-click on an alarm in the Alarm Server console to display the following options:

• View Events: Show events for an alarm tag by selecting the tag in the left side list. The row will be highlighted. By default, the last 100 alarm events for that tag are displayed in the right side list with the Start Time, End Time, and Recorded Time. The Recorded Time is usually the end time. If the alarm events have been redetected, the time will be different.
• Redetect Events: Redetection is done for a new alarm that needs to be populated in the past or if changes are made to an alarm’s configuration and the past events need to be deleted and redetected. This can be done for all tags or selected tags.

Click Select All to select all alarms or Deselect All to deselect all tags. Select specific tags by clicking the check box to the left of the tag. Caution is recommended when using Select All because accidental redetection of alarms will cause loss of the existing reasons and comments for alarm events.

Select a Start Time and End Time. This can be entered manually or with the calendar drop-down menu. The up and down arrows increase or decrease the highlighted portion of the time.

Check Redetect to Now to set the End Time to the current time. The manual selection for end time will be greyed out.

Check Trigger Workflows to execute any workflows associated with the alarms. Note: only workflows configured to trigger at the start and end of alarms will execute. Recurring workflows will not execute.

Click Redetect Selected to start the redetection of the selected tags. A popup will appear warning about the potential for data loss and, if enabled, about triggering a large number of PARCtask workflows. Click Yes if there is no valuable event data for the selected tags in the selected time period.

Redetection can take a significant amount of time if many tags are selected with a long back fill time. Currently, the alarm server processes tags sequentially. Be aware that a long processing time to back fill a tag will delay immediate processing for other tags.

The new alarm events will show in the event window on the right when the alarm is selected.

Alarm Information

Double click an alarm tag row in the PARCalarm Server console to open the Alarm Information display.

Notification tab

This tab contains the email settings from System Configuration as well as options for logging alarm processing details in the Alarm Server log file. These settings can be manually changed for testing alarm emails quickly.

The Email Notification group box contains the email settings established in System Configuration as well as the specific email settings for the alarm from Alarm Configuration. Click Send Test Msg to send an alarm message and verify that the email connection is set up properly. If necessary, enter an email address in the To Address field. This will only be used for the test and will not change the base configuration for the alarm tag.

The Logging group box contains options for alarm processing information to be displayed in the Alarm Server log file. For troubleshooting, checking all boxes is recommended to display all of the available information about the alarm

After closing the Alarm Info display, the logging preferences will automatically apply during the next cycle. If the Alarm Server is restarted the selections will be lost. Click Save Logging Config in the Alarm Server Ribbon Bar to apply the changes to all future cycles, even after a restart.

The default storage location for the event log is AlarmServer.log in C:\Program Files\Capstone\PARCAlarmServer\LogFiles.

• Violation Start/End: Displays the start and end time of when the tag was in the alarm state.
• Event Recording: Displays additional information relative to the event beyond start and end time.
• Point Processing: Displays the values of all relevant tags that are processed for the alarm.
• Detection Details: Displays all details of the alarm event. This option is verbose and will generate a significant amount of information to the log file for each event.

Log Files

PARCmessage is a built-in error monitoring software. It creates an ongoing log of errors generated from PARCview on the specific computer where PARCmessage is running. PARCalarm errors can be found in the PARCmessage console.

Errors can also be stored in the PARCview install directory both on the server and clients ...\Capstone\PARCView\LogFiles

Required Server Applications

PARCAlarmServer.exe is required to use PARCalarm Server. It is in the following directory on the server...\Capstone\PARCAlarmServer.

UA Server: All PARCview vr 7 functionality requires a Universal Access (UA) server.

GDS: All PARCview vr 7 functionality requires a Global Discovery Server (GDS).