Is the Continuous Historian data backed up when the PK Controller Administration tool backs up the project to the controller's SD card?
I noticed that the first backup I did (at the beginning of the project) was about 5 minutes long. Today, after running during development (with an attached Operator Station as the Continuous Historian) for a month and a half, the backup now takes 15 minutes. I see from looking through the log of backup items that all the DVData\Graphics-iFix files seem to be backed up, as well as custom BulkEdit files, etc. I don't see anything that implies the historian data is backed up, though. I'm assuming the historian data is included because the backup file size has grown from 164MB to 575MB, when I only have about 7 GRF displays and 117 DST's.
I never assume anything. The Standalone administrator allows you to back up the Project to the SD card, which grabs the engineering data from the DVDATA project files, including the database, Graphics and such and stores this on the SD card, allowing a completely different engineering station to be able to connect to the PK controller and load the project and make changes.
Since the Historian resides on the Operator station, it should be configured to back up the datasets and these need to be moved to a back up location. I don't think that happens automatically, but I could be wrong.
The Auto backup feature of DVCH will create XFC files in the defined backup location. From DVHistorian Admin, you can launch the backup tool that allows you to schedule back up tasks.
On the Operator station you would create a backup location to allow the task to create the backup files. These then need to be secured to another location to be considered backed up.
Should these be placed on the SD Card? I'm thinking no, but then every system/site has to address data security to meet their needs. The Standalone administration tool is interactive so history would not be backed up to the SD card automatically, but only when the project is saved, with the history files saved in a project level folder.
The back up files saved on the Operator station are only useful to restore the history in case DeltaV Software is upgraded or reinstalled. If the drive fails or is otherwise corrupted, having only these files would mean a loss of all that history. A USB drive or Stick could be used if there is no other option. A backup script to copy files to the alternate location to manage the backup folder and avoid multiple file instances. I would expect all that to be handled outside of the Standalone Administrator project tools.
Those are my expectations. I'm totally open to whatever others may come up with.
Andre Dicaire