Setting up SystemDb for global station indexing

Set up your single-tier or multi-tier SystemDb to run your index queries against all of the subordinate stations in the Supervisor’s NiagaraNetwork. This procedure describes using the preconfigured SystemDbService, which is already configured with common settings, to quickly set up the SystemDb for indexing the subordinate stations.

Prerequisites:

You have a Supervisor station that is properly licensed and has the required software already installed.
The Supervisor station has a few configuration settings (such as those listed here) and you have established connections to one or more subordinate stations in the NiagaraNetwork.
- You may wish to have history import descriptors already set up to import from the subordinate stations to the Supervisor. However, this standard history import functionality is unrelated to system indexing.
- You may also wish to enable the Import Virtual Px Files On Demand property under Virtual Policies in the NiagaraNetwork. This is to allow Niagara virtuals to attempt to pull px graphics from subordinate JACEs to the Supervisor on demand and caching them locally as you navigate in the virtual space. Since these virtual px files are created on demand and cleaned up after the view changes, the impact on the memory of the embedded platforms is eased.
The niagaraSystemIndex palette is open.
You need to enable virtuals on all reachable subordinate NiagaraStations in the Supervisor's NiagaraNetwork and set up user permissions in the category browser.
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.

NOTE: You can skip steps 1–2 if you have already performed them in procedure “Setting up SystemDb for local indexing”.

Perform the following steps:

In the niagaraSystemIndex palette, expand the Typical configuration folder , and drag the SystemDbService to the Supervisor’s Services node, and in the pop-up window click OK.
The SystemDbService is added to the station.
Open a Property Sheet view of the SystemDbService, and in the System Database Type Selection property, select orientSystemDb from the drop-down list and click Save.
You have chosen OrientDb as the backend database.
To navigate to the Global Niagara Network Indexer, expand SystemIndexService > NiagaraNetworkSystemIndexSource.
To manually trigger a global indexing operation, right-click Global Niagara Network Indexer, select Actions and click Execute to launch the system index operation.
On completion, the Global Index Last Result field shows the number of Niagara stations that successfully responded to the system index operation.
NOTE: Any subordinate station whose status is “down”, “disabled”, or “fatal fault” is skipped by the indexing operation.
To configure a time to periodically re-index the system, under the Global Niagara Network Indexer expand Execution Time to configure a time to periodically re-index your system. For example, you can configure to re-index every night at 2:00AM.

NOTE: Typically, entities (components, tags, and relations) are static in nature, so it is not necessary to constantly re-index. However, it is a good practice to set up a schedule to re-index periodically.

CAUTION: Indexing a database is a memory- and CPU-intensive operation that affects the availability of your SystemDb and remote stations. When configuring a re-index time, be sure it does not occur too often so your SystemDb and remote stations can maintain better availability throughout the day. If your SystemDb is indexed frequently, query performance degrades.

NOTE: By default, the GlobalNiagaraNetworkIndexer component is configured with a set of default query ORDs, which (if not disabled) are used to index remote root components and (non- Niagara driver) networks, device folders, devices, point folders, points, and schedules, and populate your SystemDb. This determines which entities are indexed. Additionally, you can configure the component with custom query ORDs to run in addition to (or in place of) the default queries. For more details, see niagaraSystemIndex-NiagaraNetworkSystemIndexSource in the “Components” chapter of this guide.

The system index operation populates the SystemDb with entities, tags and relations detected in the subordinate stations. At this point you can run NEQL queries against the SystemDb, and the Search results will show all of the indexed entities. For information on how to run a scoped search against the SystemDb, see Querying your System .

Setting up SystemDb for global station indexing

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