PI System and Microsoft Requirements March, 2013
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Contents Executive Summary... 1 Overview... 2 PI System Components with Dependency on Microsoft... 3 Microsoft Features... 4 PI AF Dependency on Microsoft... 6 CPU and Memory (RAM) Requirement... 6 Database Size Requirement... 6 Features Used by PI AF... 7 Business Intelligence (BI)... 8 Microsoft StreamInsight... 10 Other Notable 2008 R2 Features... 11 Other Notable 2012 Features... 12 Microsoft Express Limitations... 13
Executive Summary To fully utilize the capabilities of the PI Server, Microsoft is required to support several PI Server components including, but not limited to, PI AF. As there are numerous editions with different feature sets and many of the features impact the performance and the ability to extract the most out of your PI Server, it is important to select the proper edition to serve your present needs and future expansion of your PI Server. The table below summaries the PI Server and native features that are important to your optimal usage of the PI Server, along with the required or recommended edition. Additional details are provided later in this document. In general, for optimal performance of the PI Server under most conditions, is recommended. Features 100 or more simultaneous client connections to PI AF Recommended 2008 R2 Edition Recommended 2012 Edition 50,000 or more PI AF elements 1,000,000 or more PI Event Frames PI AF High Availability (PI AF HA Primary) Microsoft StreamInsight <5000 events per seconds or > 5 seconds latency Microsoft StreamInsight > 5000 events per second or < 5 seconds latency Administering and managing multiple databases Performing Business Intelligence (BI) with your PI data using Analysis Services Available with Available with Datacenter Available with Available with Business Intelligence PowerPivot sharing via SharePoint (Required) (Required) Building reports with your PI data using SQL Server Reporting Services Business Intelligence 1
PI System and Microsoft Requirements Overview With the introduction of the PI Server 2010, the PI Server is a bundle of components consisting of the PI Data Archive, PI Asset Framework (PI AF), PI Event Frames 1, PI Advanced Computing Engine (PI ACE), PI for StreamInsight 2, PI Notifications, PI Totalizer, PI Alarms, PI Performance Equations, PI Real-time SQC, MCN Health Monitor, PI System Access and PI System Management Tools. PI High Availability (HA) for the PI Data Archive is the only server option that can be added. In addition, starting with PI Server 2010 R3, PI AF is now an integral part of the PI Server for all customers. The PI Server along with PI client products make up the PI System with many of these components and clients relying on Microsoft SQL Server thus making it a requirement for the PI System. The purpose of this document is to provide a guide to Microsoft requirements for the PI System. 1 PI Event Frames is introduced with PI Server 2010 R3 2 With PI Server 2012, PI for StreamInsight requires product manager approval. See Microsoft StreamInsight section for information on Microsoft StreamInsight and PI for StreamInsight. 2
PI System Components with Dependency on Microsoft PI System Components with Dependency on Microsoft SQL Server The PI System components with a direct dependency on include PI AF, PI Event Frames, PI Notifications, PI for StreamInsight 3, PI Manual Logger and PI Coresight. As PI Notifications and PI Event Frames are built on PI AF, for the purpose of this document, they will be considered part of PI AF and not be discussed as separate products. The different editions provide a different feature set that affect (limit) the functions of the PI System components. Tables 1 and 2 summarize the impact of 2008 R2 and 2012 editions on PI System component functionality. PI System Components Express Datacenter PI AF Reduced functionality Reduced functionality Full functionality Full functionality PI Manual Logger Full functionality Full functionality Full functionality Full functionality PI Coresight Full functionality Full functionality Full functionality Full functionality Table 1. The impact of 2008 R2 editions on PI System component functionality PI System Components PI AF SQLServer Express Reduced functionality Reduced functionality Business Intelligence Reduced functionality Full functionality PI Manual Logger Full functionality Full functionality Full functionality Full functionality PI Coresight Full functionality Full functionality Full functionality Full functionality Table 2. The impact of 2012 editions on PI System component functionality As PI Manual Logger and PI Coresight retain full functionalities with any of the editions listed in Tables 1 and 2, they will not be discussed any further in this document. 3 See Other Features section for information on Microsoft StreamInsight and PI for StreamInsight. 3
PI System and Microsoft Requirements Microsoft Features Tables 3 and 4 summarize the Microsoft 2008 R2 and 2012 features that are currently used in one or more PI System components. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of features. For 2008 R2, there are two (2) Premium Editions; Datacenter and Parallel Data Warehouse, two (2) Core Editions; and, and six (6) Other Editions including Express. The Premium Editions are not included in this table as they provide all available features of and satisfy all PI System needs. Of the six (6) Other Editions, only Express is included in Table 3 as the remaining five (5) are for more unique environments and less applicable for PI Systems. For 2012, Microsoft has revised their lineup of editions to include three (3) main SQL Editions;, Business Intelligence and, two (2) specialized editions targeting specific workloads and three (3) free editions including Express. Only the three main 2012 editions along with Express are included in Table 4 as the remaining editions are less mainstream and designed for specialized and/or unique environments. 2008 R2 Features Express Maximum number of CPUs 1 4 8 Maximum memory utilized 1 GB 64 GB 2 TB Maximum database size 10 GB 524 PB 524 PB Database mirroring Witness only Yes (single thread, synchronous only) Automatic corruption recovery from mirror Backup compression Mirrored backups Fast recovery Online indexing Snapshot replication Subscriber only Transactional replication Subscriber only Agent Profiler SQL query, edit and design tools XML/A support Complex Event Processing (StreamInsight) Premium Table 3. Comparison of Microsoft 2008 R2 features used in the PI System 4
Microsoft Features 2012 Features Express Maximum number of CPUs Lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores Lesser of 4 sockets or 16 cores Business Intelligence Lesser of 4 sockets or 16 cores OS maximum Maximum memory utilized 1 GB 64 GB 64 GB OS maximum Maximum database size 10 GB 64 GB 64 GB OS maximum Database mirroring Witness Only Yes (Safety Full Only) Yes (Safety Full Only) Failover Clustering 4 4 Backup compression Online indexing Data compression Transactional replication Subscriber Snapshot replication Subscriber SQL Configuration manager SQL Command prompt tool Management Studio SQL Profiler Agent Dedicated admin connection Parallel indexed operations Yes (under trace flag) Native XML support Date and Time datatypes Internationalization support Complex Event Processing (StreamInsight) Table 4. Comparison of Microsoft 2012 features used in the PI System Premium 4 This feature is only available for 64-bit 2012, and for 32-bit 2012 when Address Windowing Extension (AWE) is enabled. 5
PI System and Microsoft Requirements PI AF Dependency on Microsoft Customers often seek guidance from OSIsoft as to the proper edition of to use with their PI AF. The extreme flexibility of PI AF makes this seemingly simple question quite difficult to answer. The following criteria can be used to determine the proper edition for PI AF: 1. CPU 2. RAM 3. Database size 4. PI AF features CPU and Memory (RAM) Requirement In addition to the RAM requirement for PI AF objects, PI AF utilizes stored procedures in to perform various tasks. Each stored procedure requires different amounts of processing power (CPU) and memory (RAM). Therefore each client connection to PI AF utilizes some amount of CPU and RAM. Since each client may use PI AF differently, it s difficult to correlate the number of users to CPU and RAM requirement. In house tests have shown that for optimal performance in larger systems, RAM should be sized to at least 60% of the PI AF database. Since Express has a 1GB RAM limitation, when PI AF is expected to support many concurrent users with different needs and the PI AF database is anticipated to be greater than several GB, it is recommended that a higher edition of be used for optimal performance. Additional RAM improves read and write performance to the. Database Size Requirement Each PI AF object consumes some amount of database storage. The type and quantity of objects stored as PI AF element attributes consumes different amounts of database storage. As there are infinite permutations of PI AF object types, counts and content, it is impossible to provide an absolute quantification of database size requirements. However, we can provide some representative examples. Table 5 provides database sizes of some representative PI AF systems. The default PI AF SQL database is named PIFD and its size can be found using either Management Studio, which is provided with all editions including 2012 Express, or by traversing to the folder location of the PIFD database using Windows Explorer. 6
PI AF Dependency on Microsoft PI AF Element Count PI Notifications Count PI Event Frames Count DB Size (MB) 0 0 0 39 1,000 1,000 10,000 166 2,000 2,000 20,000 286 3,000 3,000 30,000 404 4,000 4,000 40,000 521 5,000 5,000 50,000 638 6,000 5,000 60,000 756 10,000 5,000 100,000 1,100 20,000 5,000 200,000 2,228 30,000 5,000 300,000 3,300 40,000 5,000 400,000 4,323 50,000 5,000 500,000 5,379 100,000 5,000 1,000,000 10,640 Table 5. PI AF object counts and their impacts on database size For Table 5, each PI AF object has 25 attributes. 50% of the attributes are double precision real numbers with the remaining attributes containing 20 character text strings. Database size is approximate. A typical PI AF system with >50,000 elements and PI Notifications and PI Event Frames will start approaching Express 10GB database size limit with room for future expansion. Other PI AF features such as element versioning and audit trail will increase the PI AF database size. Users can get information on their PI AF object counts using PI System Explorer (System Properties -> Count). Features Used by PI AF PI AF uses all the features as listed in Tables 3 and 4. It is important to select the proper SQL Server edition to serve your needs today while taking into account for future expansion. For example, one key feature, PI AF High Availability (HA) is not supported by Express in the PI AF HA primary. 7
PI System and Microsoft Requirements Business Intelligence (BI) Business Intelligence is a combination of database and visualization technologies that enables users to explore large quantities of data at an aggregate level. Common objectives include identifying an area of focus from a top down approach, comparison of measurements or key performance indicators by multiple axes, report generation, predictive or what-if analyses of complex systems, and dependent variable analysis. In short, BI supports better business decision making. Often times the PI System contains the time series data that is necessary to perform these analyses in conjunction with data from business systems. Microsoft recognizes these BI needs and provides key features and functions within s to enable BI analyses and reports. Tables 8 and 9 describe BI dependencies on the various main editions. 2008 R2 Features Express Analysis Services backup Dimension, attribute relationship, aggregate, and cube design Translations Personalization extensions PowerPivot for SharePoint Financial aggregations Partitioned cubes and distributed artitioned cubes Custom rollups Semi-additive measures Writeback dimensions Linked measures and dimensions Binary and compressed XML transport Account intelligence Perspectives Scalable shared databases Report Builder 3.0 for Ad Hoc Reporting Excel 2007 and Visio 2007 Add-in support Table 6. Business Intelligence (BI) Dependency on Microsoft 2008 R2 8
Business Intelligence (BI) 2012 Features Business Intelligence Basic OLTP Programmability (T-SQL, Data Types, File Table) Manageability ( Management Studio, Policybased Management) Basic High Availability 5 Basic Corporate BI (Reporting, Analytics, Multidimensional Semantic Model, Data Mining) Basic Data Integration (Built-in Data Connectors, Designer Transforms) Self-Service Business Intelligence (Alerting, Power View, PowerPivot for SharePoint Server) 6 Advanced Corporate BI (Tabular BI Semantic Model, Advanced Analytics and Reporting, VertiPaq In- Memory Engine) Advanced Data Integration (Fuzzy Grouping and Lookup, Change Data Capture, Advanced Data Mining) Data Management (Data Quality Services, Master Data Services) Advanced Security ( Audit, Transparent Data Encryption) Data Warehousing (ColumnStore Index, Compression, Partitioning) Advanced High Availability (Multiple, Active Secondaries; Multi-site, Geo-Clustering) 5 Table 7. Business Intelligence (BI) Dependency on Microsoft 2012 5 Basic includes log shipping, database mirroring, server core support and two-node Failover Clustering. Windows Server edition or above is a system requirement for AlwaysOn / Failover Clustering. 6 SharePoint Server with CAL is a system requirement for Power View and PowerPivot for SharePoint. Alerting is accessible through SharePoint Foundation or above. 9
PI System and Microsoft Requirements Microsoft StreamInsight Microsoft StreamInsight version 1.1 or higher is required for use with PI for StreamInsight 7. Microsoft StreamInsight version 2.1 or higher is required for use with the code examples available on the OSIsoft Virtual Campus site. Microsoft StreamInsight was introduced with 2008 R2. Microsoft StreamInsight requires a Microsoft 2008 R2 or 2012 license. However, a Microsoft installation is not required. Microsoft StreamInsight is designed to handle a wide variety of event-driven scenarios and is used for Complex Event Processing. Microsoft StreamInsight is available in two editions: Premium and. The differences between the editions are in two areas: Rate and Latency. Table 6 and 7 summarize the Microsoft StreamInsight dependency on the main 2008 R2 and 2012 editions respectively. In order to utilize StreamInsight, a minimum of is required for StreamInsight while DataCenter (2008 R2) or (2012) edition is required for StreamInsight Premium. Express StreamInsight Rate N/A < 5000 events per second < 5000 events per second Datacenter > 5000 events per second StreamInsight Latency N/A > 5 seconds > 5 seconds < 5 seconds Table 8. Microsoft StreamInsight dependency on 2008 R2 editions Express StreamInsight Rate N/A < 5000 events per second StreamInsight Latency Business Intelligence < 5000 events per second > 5000 events per second N/A > 5 seconds > 5 seconds < 5 seconds Table 9. Microsoft StreamInsight dependency on 2012 editions 7 With PI Server 2012, PI for StreamInsight requires product manager approval. 10
Other Notable 2008 R2 Features Other Notable 2008 R2 Features There are a few features not available on a basic Express installation that would enable users to better manage larger and more complex PI Systems and derive additional values from their PI System data. These include 8 : management tools Management Studio is an integrated environment for accessing, configuring, managing, administering, and developing all components of. These are included with version or higher, but can be installed with Express. Analysis Services Analysis Services provides a group of online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining capabilities allowing users to perform business intelligence (BI) functions with their data. Edition is required with full functionality and Data Warehousing capabilities in edition or higher. Managed Self Service Business Intelligence Enabling PowerPivot sharing and collaboration through SharePoint requires 2008 R2 Edition or higher. Reporting Services Reporting Services provides a full range of ready-to-use tools and services to help users create, deploy, and manage reports for their organization, as well as programming features that enable users to extend and customize their reporting functionality. or higher is required for the full suite whereas a subset of features is available with Express. 8 Some of these features are available with Express with Advanced Services or they are installed with a higher SQL Server editions and applied towards Express. 11
PI System and Microsoft Requirements Other Notable 2012 Features Managed Self Service Business Intelligence Power View is an interactive data exploration, visualization, and presentation experience. It provides intuitive ad-hoc reporting for business users such as data analysts, business decision makers, and information workers. They can easily create and interact with views of data from tabular models based on PowerPivot workbooks published in a PowerPivot Gallery, or tabular models deployed to 2012 Analysis Services (SSAS) Release Candidate 0 (RC 0) instances. Power View is a browser-based Silverlight application launched from SharePoint Server 2010 that enables users to present and share insights with others in their organization through interactive presentations. 12
Microsoft Express Limitations Microsoft Express Limitations Although one can use any one of the many editions for the PI System, it is worthwhile to note that Express has some limitations. They are: 1 CPU limit this limit can cause sub-optimal user experience in a multiuser environment or if PI AF is installed in a shared fashion with other applications. 1 GB RAM limit for optimal performance in larger systems, in house test has shown that RAM should be sized to at least 60% of the PI AF database size. 10 GB database size limit A typical PI AF system with >50,000 elements with PI Notifications and PI Event Frames will approach Express 10GB database size limit. Other PI AF features such as the element versioning and audit trail could dramatically increase the PI AF database size. Lacks features that would enable users to better manage larger and more complex PI Systems and to derive additional values from their PI System data. Does not support Microsoft StreamInsight Does not support PI AF High Availability Does not support BI functionalities We recommend that the highest edition of be used that fits the user s current and future needs. 13