The following license features, software modules, and minimum system settings are required in order to use the System Database
and System Indexing features.
Required licensing
The
Supervisor station must be licensed for the systemDb feature. There is also a check for the presence of “orientDb=true” attribute under the systemDb feature, which allows use
of the default OrientDb backend database.
Also required is the systemIndex license feature with certain attribute limits. These attributes go under the "systemIndex" license feature in the
Supervisor's license (license changes are not required on the remote JACEs)
- station.limit
Defines how many NiagaraStation instances (for example,JACEs) in the
Supervisor’s NiagaraNetwork are allowed to participate in system indexing to put their entities into the SystemDb (subject to the entity
limit that follows). This attribute is required for any remote entity indexing to occur against remote NiagaraStations. Once
this limit is exceeded, additional NiagaraStations will be prevented from putting their index data into the SystemDb . The
NiagaraStation's SystemIndexer component will go into fault indicating the license limit exceeded. Once the license limit
is exceeded, the
Supervisor station must be restarted in order to recount against the license limits.
- station.entity.limit
Defines the maximum number of entities that are allowed to be indexed to the
Supervisor's SystemDb from an individual remote NiagaraStation source (for example, JACE). This attribute is required for remote entity indexing to occur against remote NiagaraStations. Once the limit is reached,
any subsequent entities from a particular NiagaraStation is skipped from indexing.
- edge_station.limit
Defines how many NiagaraEdgeStation instances in the
Supervisor's NiagaraNetwork are allowed to participate in system indexing to put their entities into the
Supervisor's SystemDb (subject to the entity limit that follows). This attribute is required for any remote entity indexing to occur
against remote NiagaraEdgeStations. Once this limit is exceeded, additional NiagaraEdgeStations are prevented from putting
their index data into the SystemDb. The NiagaraEdgeStation's SystemIndexer component will go into fault indicating the license
limit exceeded). Once the license limit exceeded, you must restart the
Supervisor station to recount against the license limits.
- edge_station.entity.limit
Defines the maximum number of entities that are allowed to be indexed to the
Supervisor's SystemDb from an individual remote NiagaraEdgeStation source (for example, NEL devices). This attribute is required for
remote entity indexing to occur against remote NiagaraEdgeStations. Once the limit is reached, any subsequent entities from
a particular NiagaraEdgeStation are skipped from indexing.
Required software
You must install the following modules on the
Supervisor station.
- niagaraDriver (-rt)
- niagaraVirtual (-rt)
- niagaraSystemIndex (-rt, -wb)
- orientSystemDb (-se)
- systemDb (-rt)
- systemIndex (-rt)
If you intend to export index data from the subordinate station, you need to install the following modules on the subordinate
station. No additional modules are required.
- niagaraDriver (-rt)
- niagaraVirtual (-rt)
- niagaraSystemIndex (-rt)
- systemDb (-rt)
- systemIndex (-rt)
Minimum system requirements
The minimum amount of memory needed depends on the number of entities, tags, and relations to be indexed. The following table
offers guidelines and does not guarantee that the suggested memory settings suffices in every production setting. These settings
are the minimum required (as part of the
Niagara 4.14 OrientDb upgrade) in the performance testing environment that allowed a System Database to function correctly.
CAUTION: Memory settings that are too low could lead to faulty and unpredictable station behavior. When possible, use more than the
minimum settings to optimize performance.
| Number of Entities |
Number of Tags |
Number of Relations |
-Xmx (MaxHeapSize) |
<= 1,579,000 |
<= 32,500,000 |
<= 3,210,000 |
6G |
Depending on the number of stations being indexed, you may need to increase the MaxHeapSize beyond the minimum suggested settings.
If starting your
Supervisor station from the platform (Daemon Home), which is the preferred method, you need to modify these settings in the nre.properties file located in the Daemon Home (typically, C:\ProgramData\Niagara4.x\<brand>\etc). If starting the
Supervisor station from the command line in
Workbench for test purposes, you need to modify these settings in the nre.properties file located in your User Home directory (C:\Users\userName\Niagara4.x\<brand>\etc).
station.java.options=-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Xmx6G
Other requirements
When the
Supervisor queries the System Database for information about subordinate stations (via NEQL), the resulting entities are resolved in
the form of
Niagara virtual components. Consequently, you must enable virtuals on the
Supervisor station.
IMPORTANT: You must set up user permissions for
Niagara virtuals manually in the
Supervisor via roles and permissions. For details, see “Authorization management” in the Niagara Station Security Guide.