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MII Connectors and PCo

Former Member
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Hi Experts,

I have been trying to learn about the different options to connect to MES systems. I went through a bunch of threads in this forum to help gain knowledge. I'm looking for some clarification regarding Plant Connectivity(PCo) and the connectors available in SAP MII.

Going through the help page, I see the different connectors available to connect to different data sources. For eg: AspenTech InfoPlus.21® (IP21) which is a historian. MII also seems to support some of the modes like History, HistoryEvent.

My question is as follows:

If the standard connectors are available to connect to some of these data sources from SAP MII.

1. what is the need to have PCo in these cases?

2. Is it that PCo provides more options/functionality?

3. Is it that we use the connectors available in MII for the list that's available in the SAP MII help page and use PCo when there is no standard connector for the required data source?


Thanks in advance for your inputs.

Raj

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member

Sorry I meant to say PLC/Data sources instead of MES systems above.

Former Member
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Dear Raj,

SAP MII has got inbuilt connectors to connect to various data sources, e.g IDBC connector is used connect to a DB (SQL/Oracle/Sybase).

When we talk about connecting to the various shop floor data sources like PLC, SCADA, Historian, DCS etc., MII's standard connectors are not capable of connecting to these sources directly and that is where PCo module of SAP comes into picture which acts as a middle ware/platform to gather data from various shop floor data sources and then this data can be used by MII via various connectors like PCo, OLEDB etc.

Hope this clears your doubt 🙂

Warm Regards,

Anuj

former_member211944
Active Participant
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Hi Raj,

Most important points are already explained by Anuj.

Some additional things that PCo provides are grouping mechanism and notification service where you can call any MII transaction on certain conditions(this is configurable in PCo).

Regards,

Rohit Negi.

Former Member
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Thanks for response:

"When we talk about connecting to the various shop floor data sources like PLC, SCADA, Historian, DCS etc., MII's standard connectors are not capable of connecting to these sources directly and that is where PCo module"

What would be the purpose of the IP21 connector in MII? Based on what I could find, Aspen InfoPlus.21 is a historian and MII inbuilt connector can be used.

Does that mean we can avoid bringing PCo into the picture for some historians/data sources?

former_member196557
Active Contributor
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Hi Raj,

MII does not have native Tag and Agregrate connectors to Historians like OSISoft PI, AspenTech IP31, Ge Proficy, etc; these native connections are provided by PCo, and allows use of the standard PCoQuery template object to use for Tag List, Current Value, and Aggregate Value queries from within MII Transactions. For other shop floor systems like PLC's (Proigrammable Controllers), PCo provides an OPC Connector that again allows the MII PCoQuery to execute Tag List and Current Value queries.  PCo also provides a Notification object which can trigger on data changes from OPC, Historian, flat file, or other sources, and send associated data to an MII transaction on the event, or call a Web Service on the event. 

PCo also provides OLEDB and ODBC  connectors that can be used with MII SQLQuery templates for accessing database that do not have JDBC connectors, or so that the connector can be deployed at PCo instead of MII. 

Regards, Steve

Former Member
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Hi Steve,

Thanks for the reply. I've really enjoyed reading your posts in this forum. It definitely helps me understand the different options available with PCo.

From a MII perspective it sounds like the connectors available in MII are not used very much and PCo provides a standard interface to connect to different data sources with enhanced functionality. And since PCo does not need a separate license(if you have MII already) it makes more sense from a project point of view to manage all connections with PCo. With that being said, will some of the connectors available in MII become obsolete going forward?

I'm not trying to jump to conclusions and just trying to understand what the future roadmap will look like.

Regards,

Raj

Answers (1)

Answers (1)

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