I currently have been working on a project that has 3 identical sites that have the following at each site:
1 - Cellular Modem
1 - SNAP PAC R1 Processor
1 - Groov Box
The Groov App is great and everyone seems to enjoy it when they are on their mobile device. However, when they are in their office at their computers, they have to save the 3 IP addresses and click each one individually, sign in (each one) and then look at the site data. This is done through Groov as well. I want to make one Display Program in PAC Display that will seamlessly switch from one site to the next.
With that said, I only developed 1 PAC Control program for all three sites. When I update the program, I have to modify the control engine IP address and then Debug each site and each site will be updated. That’s how i achieve that. When I update the Groov program, I edit one site then back it up and then import it to the other sites. All sites will be identical again.
Now, since I only made 1 control program, How can I get all three sites tags into one PAC Display Program?.. Or will I have to duplicate the PAC Control Program and modify the IP and have three “different” .idb files? (Since the IP Address will change for each Control Engine although the Control Engine name will be the same)
If you have three PAC-R1 with the same program then each PAC R1 has different IP address right? IN PAC Manager & PAC Terminal set up the three different PAC-R1 with a specific name and IP address. On your computer desktop set up three different PAC Display Runtime (Green Arrow) and then rename each one with the specific controller name or site name.
I have many installations done this way. The only draw back is that you can only view one controller at one time. However I remember that there is a way in PAC Display configuration that you can allow more than one PAC Display Runtime on one computer.
The other option of course is you set up three computers side by side dedicated one for each site.
There are a few things to consider here, but lets start with the PAC Display question(s);
Yes, you can connect many (many) pac controllers to the one pac display runtime.
Yes, they can all have the exact same strategy.
This is possible because they have to have different IP addresses.
You only need to configure your controllers in pac term. Not pac manager.
You do not need to make a pac display per controller, any number of controllers can be in the one pac display.
You do not need to tick the option of allowing more than one pac display runtime running at once on the pc.
In this way, you can view all the controllers at once, on the one pac display screen if you chose.
Likewise, in pac control, you can have many controllers configured, just change the names and ip address.
If you are connecting locally, you just need to change the name, each controller can have the same IP address.
When you move from site to site, just open pac control and connect to that sites controller name. No need to modify the IP address.
As far as copying the same groov project to the different sites, cant say much other than subscribe to OptoNews.
The core of the original post is how each remote site is communicating back to the office?
Please do NOT do a port forward on each cellular modem to port 22001. This is in effect putting the controller on the Internet. You do NOT want to do this. It is a MAJOR security risk.
If you have not done it already, please read the guide to Networking Opto 22 Products. PDF Doc 1796.
If you are interested in having another groov back at the office (perhaps groov Server For Windows since you may have a PC there that is on all the time), then also consider reading PDF Doc 2161, Guide to networking groov.
Bottom line, hopefully the cellular modems have VPN clients or servers built in and you can set up a VPN at the office to connect to each of the sites.
With the VPN setup correctly, you will be able to use groov, PAC Display, PAC Control, PAC Term and PAC Manager all from the office to each remote site, all from one or more PC’s.
Ben,
I set these up for port forwarding. I was going to look into VPN after I had everything working correctly. I think that time is now. I will get these set up for VPN and I think everything will fall into place. Thank you for all your input. Makes sense.
