THE CANARY SYSTEM OVERVIEW

The Canary System installer consists of three component groupings:

• Historian Server
• Data Collectors
• Client Tools

If following best practices, each group of software components should be installed on different servers.  

 

The Canary Data Collectors should be installed as close to the data source as possible.  This likely means you will install the Canary Collectors, Canary Admin Service, and Sender Service on your OPC Server, MQTT Broker, or SCADA server.

Additionally, the Canary Historian Server software components should be installed on their own stand-alone VM or physical server.  Note, not all components are pictured above.  Below is a complete architecture of all Canary software components:

 

 

Installation

Begin installation by right-clicking on the installer and running as an Administrator from the dedicated Canary Server.

It is advised you install the following components. 

There is no need to install Sender, Calculation Server, Events, Mirror, Publisher, and ODBC on the Canary Server if you will not be using these components.

Complete the install by clicking 'Install'.  The installer will now run and generate a 'Success' message when complete.

Next, run the installer as an administrator on the data collection machine.  Remove all Historian Server components and select Store & Forward and the data collectors you need.  Proceed with the install.

 

Licensing

Once both the data collection tools and Canary Server tools have been installed, you will need to license the Canary Server.  To do so, run the Canary Administrator application while on the Canary Server.

From within the Canary Administrator, click the 'License' tile.  You can add licenses manually (no internet access) or automatically if you have internet access from the Canary Server.

ADDING LICENSES AUTOMATICALLY (REQUIRES DIRECT INTERNET ACCESS)

Fill out the fields for “Name”, “Company”, and “Email” based on how you would like the software licensed.

 Insert your serial number in the “Serial Number” field.

 Select a Quantity of “1”.

 Check the boxes for “Axiom” and “Historian”.

 In the bottom right corner, select “Get License”.

 Your system is now licensed.

 

ADDING LICENSES MANUALLY  (NO INTERNET ACCESS)

Copy the License Code.

From a machine or device that has internet access, navigate to canarylabs.com/support/license.

Fill out “Name”, “Company”, and “Email” fields based on how you would like the software licensed.

Insert the serial number in the “Serial Number” field.

Insert the License Code as found in the upper right-hand corner window titled “Add License Manually” (note, this code will update and change).

Select the appropriate quantity, typically “1”.

From the License Products dropdown, select desired products, typically “Canary Historian”, “Excel Add-In” and “Axiom”.

Click “Send”.

You will be provided with a License Key. Copy this key into the License Key box on the Canary Admin’s Licenses panel, found in the window titled “Add License Manually”.

 

Create DataSets

METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW

Canary has designed its solution to eliminate the need of a database administrator to manage the Historian. To achieve this, Canary uses a simple but elegant method to segment the data in two ways. First is the creation of DataSets, or a group of tags with logically associated data. Second is the Historical Database (HDB) file, segmented by time periods. These two organizational structures allow for database expansion without effecting performance or requiring any management of size or duration.

Generally, a new HDB file is created daily. Once closed, each HDB goes through loss-less compression to minimize Historian’s storage requirements. Canary stores data using lossless data compression to ensure data written to the Historian is identical to the data later read from it. Canary algorithms achieve a data compression rate beyond sixty percent.

Each HDB file contains tag names, tag properties, and TVQ units comprised of a timestamp, a value, and a quality score. Values can include Booleans, Integers, Floats, Doubles, or Strings. Canary writes all three TVQ components together ensuring the value is always paired with the correct timestamp and quality.

The data storage structures of the Canary Historian are designed to maximize read speeds rather than write speeds. Reads are prioritized because data is only written once but read many times. To provision read performance beyond 4,000,000 updates per second, HDB files are organized so TVQs are physically stored with their associated tag, rather than the traditional method of storing TVQs in a time block. As a result, queries made to the Historian on a tag-by-tag basis are optimized for both high tag count and high-speed performance.  A single historian server can be scaled (if resourced properly) to store value for over two million tags and achieve over 1,500,000 updates per second. 

CREATING DATASETS

DataSets are the way tags are organized. DataSets can be created by launching the Canary Admin application on the Canary Historian Server and clicking on the Historian Panel. When logging tags, each DataSet will have its own historical database file, called an HDB file.

Begin by clicking on the “Historian” panel in the Canary Admin.

At the bottom of the window, click “Configuration”.

Click “New” to create your first DataSet.

Name your DataSet and confirm your path (default is C:\Historian Data).

The “Settings” window can now be configured. Once settings are correct, click “Create” to build your DataSet.

 

Logging Data

DATA COLLECTORS

Choose the Knowledge Base article below based on the data collector you wish to use.

OPC UA

OPC DA

MQTT Sparkplug

CSV Import

 

Trending Data

Now that you are logging data and storing it to a DataSet, you can trend your data in Axiom.

To learn how to use the Axiom tool, visit the Canary Academy and register for the Axiom Trending module.

LAUNCHING AXIOM

Launch a web browser from a machine that has network access to the Canary Historian Server.

Enter the machine name of the Canary Historian Server as the web address followed by a forward slash. For instance, if the server name is ‘CanaryHistorian’ enter the following for an anonymous unsecure connection– canaryhistorian/

Add ‘https://’ to the beginning of the address if security is enabled.

You can now begin to use Axiom.

To download a thin-client version of Axiom that does not require browser access, click the user name in the upper right-hand corner and select ‘Download App’.

Follow the install procedures and run the Axiom application.