FW: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Davis, Robert N.]

This note came to me from our Decatur plant.  Any suggestions?

We are looking at a problem that is going to be experienced by other plants
in the future. We have a Foxboro I/A system here on our Cogen plant. We have
AW51s (A series) and V6.1 software. We recently installed the OSI PI system
onto one of our AW51s. What was already a slow box has become almost
unusable. We have received a lot of complaints from the plant operators -
especially about the graphic call up speed.

We have talked about upgrading the boxes to the latest AW51s (series D or E)
to speed things up. Unfortunately we are being quoted $100,000 by Foxboro.
What makes this worse is that we know we can buy the boxes from Sun direct
for 30% of the Foxboro price and Foxboro are charging us $50,000 for
software licenses. Foxboro are not being very helpful at this time. When we
proposed buying the boxes from Sun, Foxboro refused to support these boxes.

We are wondering if it is technically possible to buy the new boxes from Sun
and try to load the existing software on ourselves. This would mean that we
are using the same software licenses but should get a better performance. We
have asked Foxboro about this and been told that it is not possible because
we need to buy new licenses from Sun. We have asked Sun about this and they
have told us that we do not need new licenses but they do not know if this
would work.

Does anyone have any thoughts/experience in this matter. Is this possible or
are we missing something somewhere?

All comments gratefully received


Bob Davis
Process Control Engineer
765-477-5317---Fax 765-474-9036
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]


This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
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RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Ball, Patrick G.]

Robert,
I am located at the PSDF (Power System Development Facility) her in
Wilsonville, AL. back a couple of years ago, we upgraded to an AW51C from
AW51A box (Ver. 4.1). We also have OSI PI system. I thought the A box was
slow, but when we got our C box, it would run fine without PI running, but
when PI was started the C box would crash in about 45 minutes. We had to get
an AW51E box to fix the problem. We did work it out since we had just
upgraded to a C box. I know this probably does not answer your question, but
I thought I would throw this in.

Patrick G. Ball
Internet Address -- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Intercompany -- 8-824-5877
Bell Phone -- 1-205-670-5877
Beeper -- 1-877-986-6814




> -Original Message-
> From: Davis, Robert N. [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 12:02 PM
> To:   Foxboro DCS Mail List
> Subject:  FW: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes
> 
> This note came to me from our Decatur plant.  Any suggestions?
> 
> We are looking at a problem that is going to be experienced by other
> plants
> in the future. We have a Foxboro I/A system here on our Cogen plant. We
> have
> AW51s (A series) and V6.1 software. We recently installed the OSI PI
> system
> onto one of our AW51s. What was already a slow box has become almost
> unusable. We have received a lot of complaints from the plant operators -
> especially about the graphic call up speed.
> 
> We have talked about upgrading the boxes to the latest AW51s (series D or
> E)
> to speed things up. Unfortunately we are being quoted $100,000 by Foxboro.
> What makes this worse is that we know we can buy the boxes from Sun direct
> for 30% of the Foxboro price and Foxboro are charging us $50,000 for
> software licenses. Foxboro are not being very helpful at this time. When
> we
> proposed buying the boxes from Sun, Foxboro refused to support these
> boxes.
> 
> We are wondering if it is technically possible to buy the new boxes from
> Sun
> and try to load the existing software on ourselves. This would mean that
> we
> are using the same software licenses but should get a better performance.
> We
> have asked Foxboro about this and been told that it is not possible
> because
> we need to buy new licenses from Sun. We have asked Sun about this and
> they
> have told us that we do not need new licenses but they do not know if this
> would work.
> 
> Does anyone have any thoughts/experience in this matter. Is this possible
> or
> are we missing something somewhere?
> 
> All comments gratefully received
> 
> 
> Bob Davis
> Process Control Engineer
> 765-477-5317---Fax 765-474-9036
> E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 
> This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
> intended
> solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
> If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for
> delivering the e-mail to the intended recipient, be advised that you have
> received this e-mail in error, and that any use, dissemination,
> forwarding,
> printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited.  If you have
> received this e-mail in error, please notify the TLNA HELPDESK at
> 800-404-2436 or e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> ---
> This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All 
> postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty 
> is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated 
> through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the 
> list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to
> 
> your application of information received from this mailing list.
> 
> To be removed from this list, send mail to 
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> with "unsubscribe foxboro" in the Subject. Or, send any mail to
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: FW: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Neil Martin]

Before you spend money on new AWs, I hope you have reviewed the
possibilities of adding more memory, reducing your PI data parameters to
reduce the changes per minute rate, and made sure your OM () lists are
optimized.  Are you running the PI server on your AW?  If so, I would
recommend changing it and only running the interface on the AW.  Use a
separate computer for the PI Server.






   
   
"Davis, Robert N." 
   
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   To: Foxboro DCS Mail List 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: cc:   
   
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: FW: Upgrading 
Foxboro Boxes 
oject.org> 
   
   
   
   
   
04/18/01 12:02 PM  
   
Please respond to "Foxboro 
   
DCS Mail List" 
   
   
   
   
   




This note came to me from our Decatur plant.  Any suggestions?

We are looking at a problem that is going to be experienced by other plants
in the future. We have a Foxboro I/A system here on our Cogen plant. We
have
AW51s (A series) and V6.1 software. We recently installed the OSI PI system
onto one of our AW51s. What was already a slow box has become almost
unusable. We have received a lot of complaints from the plant operators -
especially about the graphic call up speed.

We have talked about upgrading the boxes to the latest AW51s (series D or
E)
to speed things up. Unfortunately we are being quoted $100,000 by Foxboro.
What makes this worse is that we know we can buy the boxes from Sun direct
for 30% of the Foxboro price and Foxboro are charging us $50,000 for
software licenses. Foxboro are not being very helpful at this time. When we
proposed buying the boxes from Sun, Foxboro refused to support these boxes.

We are wondering if it is technically possible to buy the new boxes from
Sun
and try to load the existing software on ourselves. This would mean that we
are using the same software licenses but should get a better performance.
We
have asked Foxboro about this and been told that it is not possible because
we need to buy new licenses from Sun. We have asked Sun about this and they
have told us that we do not need new licenses but they do not know if this
would work.

Does anyone have any thoughts/experience in this matter. Is this possible
or
are we missing something somewhere?

All comments gratefully received


Bob Davis
Process Control Engineer
765-477-5317---Fax 765-474-9036
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]


This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for
delivering the e-mail to the intended recipient, be advised that you have
received this e-mail in error, and that any use, dissemination, forwarding,
printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited.  If you have
received this e-mail in error, please notify the TLNA HELPDESK at
800-404-2436 or e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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---

RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Kennedy, Don (USBORAX)]

A couple of years ago I asked this question of a Foxboro V.P. at a user's
group meeting question/answer session.  I was told that this was a
'marketing decision' made by Foxboro, which means: no, you don't really need
a new license, that's just the way they have decided to do things.  I gather
that this policy has not changed.  

This policy has hindered the usefulness of our system by keeping it locked
into out of date, slow computers compared to the rest of our business
systems which have been continually upgraded.


>We have talked about upgrading the boxes to the latest AW51s (series D or
E)
>to speed things up. Unfortunately we are being quoted $100,000 by Foxboro.
>What makes this worse is that we know we can buy the boxes from Sun direct
>for 30% of the Foxboro price and Foxboro are charging us $50,000 for
>software licenses. Foxboro are not being very helpful at this time. When we
>proposed buying the boxes from Sun, Foxboro refused to support these boxes.

>We are wondering if it is technically possible to buy the new boxes from
Sun
>and try to load the existing software on ourselves. This would mean that we
>are using the same software licenses but should get a better performance.
We
>have asked Foxboro about this and been told that it is not possible because
>we need to buy new licenses from Sun. We have asked Sun about this and they
>have told us that we do not need new licenses but they do not know if this
>would work.


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RE: Heard of APACS (sp?)

[Golemme, Stephen]

Alex,

Don J. maybe able to provide some services for support on APACS at his new
company.  Don was a Tech Consultant in Mobile for Fox for about 2 yrs.
Before hiring into Fox he worked for an Engineering co in Mobile AL.

His name may be familiar to you because Shell had hired his company & him to
help evaluate DCSs - which we won.

FYI 
spg



-Original Message-
From: Johnson, Alex (Foxboro) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 8:18 PM
To: Foxboro DCS Mail List
Subject: RE: Heard of APACS (sp?)


Thanks. I knew it sounded familiar. Of course, now I have to figure out why
they called us for support. :-)


Regards,


Alex Johnson
10707 Haddington
Houston, TX 77043
713.722.2859 (office)
713.722.2700 (switchboard)
713.932.0222 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  


-Original Message-
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent:   Tuesday, April 17, 2001 6:51 PM
To: Foxboro DCS Mail List
Subject:Re: Heard of APACS (sp?)


Details at:

http://www.mpco.com/apacs/default.asp

Kevin FitzGerrell
Systems Engineer
Foxboro New Zealand

Tel:  +64 (9) 573 7690
Fax:  +64 (9) 573 7691




"Johnson, Alex (Foxboro)"

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   To:
Foxboro DCS Mail List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   
Sent by: cc:

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject:
Heard of APACS (sp?)   
oject.org>





04/17/01 07:24 AM

Please respond to "Foxboro

DCS Mail List"









Anyone familiar with APACS? (I'm not even sure that I have the
acronym
correct.)

I think that it might have something to do with remote access to the
I/A
Series System, but I'm not sure.


Regards,


Alex Johnson
10707 Haddington
Houston, TX 77043
713.722.2859 (office)
713.722.2700 (switchboard)
713.932.0222 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 



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your application of information received from 

RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Murray, Steve]

Hi Patrick,

  We bought a AW51C a few years ago as part of a new system.  It would crash
for no apparent reason and the Foxboro installation team replaced it with a
AW51B before turning the system over to us.  We were later told that Foxboro
quit using the Cs altogether.

Stephen Murray
Asarco

-Original Message-
From: Ball, Patrick G. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 10:59 AM
To: 'Foxboro DCS Mail List'
Subject: RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes


Robert,
I am located at the PSDF (Power System Development Facility) her in
Wilsonville, AL. back a couple of years ago, we upgraded to an AW51C from
AW51A box (Ver. 4.1). We also have OSI PI system. I thought the A box was
slow, but when we got our C box, it would run fine without PI running, but
when PI was started the C box would crash in about 45 minutes. We had to get
an AW51E box to fix the problem. We did work it out since we had just
upgraded to a C box. I know this probably does not answer your question, but
I thought I would throw this in.

Patrick G. Ball
Internet Address -- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Intercompany -- 8-824-5877
Bell Phone -- 1-205-670-5877
Beeper -- 1-877-986-6814


This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential
information. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete
it and notify the sender. The contents of this E-mail are the opinion of the
writer only and are not endorsed by ASARCO Inc. unless expressly stated
otherwise.

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RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes (or How to tell if I need a new box)

[Johnson, Alex (Foxboro)]

Bob,

I am not here to defend our pricing models or justify why we need revenue,
but there are things that I can suggest. Before you upgrade, please check a
few things:

*   Upgrade to the latest FoxAPI QF. I believe that this is V4.2.4
QF990341.
*   Review the change deltas in the PI database. I've seen more than one
system brought to its knees by zero (0.0) change deltas or ones that are
much smaller than the noise in the signal. Change deltas on field
measurements should be > than the repeatability of the transmitter and on
non-field signals can be almost anything bigger than zero.
*   Review the FoxAPI settings on your box. FoxAPI V4.0 has a single
read scan rate that is specified by the fastest_rsr parameter in the
/opt/fox/ais/bin/foxapi.cfg file. The default is 0.5 seconds. This default
combined with small deltas will generate a lot of "extra" work. Add the
following line to the file:
fastest_rsr=4 
a setting of 4 sets the update rate on the lists to 2
seconds. Be cautious if other applications on the box use FoxAPI as this
change will effect them as well.
*   In a cmdtool or VT100 window, run the following command:
vmstat 10 20
this command will report on the computer's load. The output will
resemble:
1AW51C# vmstat 5 5
 procs memorypagedisk  faults
cpu
 r b w   swap  free  re  mf pi po fr de sr f0 m0 m1 m2   in   sy
cs us sy id
 0 0 0 248936 18928   0  65  6  4  6  0  1  1  0  0  0  523  672
334  4  3 93
 0 0 0 245876  6916   0   3 49  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0 3531  544
313  0  1 99
 0 0 0 245876  6916   0   0 24  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0 3736  539
314  0  0 99
 0 0 0 245892  7052   0  90  4  0  0  0  0  0  1  0  0 2565  716
333  2  4 94
 0 0 0 245992  7280   0   0  0  0  0  0  0  0  2  0  0   51  532
307  0  1 99
1AW51C#
The first line should be ignored. It is always wrong. The columns to
observe are:
1.  swap - The amount of swap space available on your machine. This gets
used when the RAM gets full.
2.  free - The amount of available RAM. If this is low, your programs
will work out of swap and that is very, very slow.
3.  The numbers under page (re through sr) sholud be low. If you see
three digits you are low on RAM.
4.  id (the column to the far right) shows the idle time. This will be
low if paging is required.
This should tell you pretty quickly if the machine is memory bound.
If it is, upgrade the RAM. If it is not, i.e., id is high and free is big
and page number are low, an application is consuming the time.
*   Use ps -el (or top if you have it or want to get it from
www.sunfreeware.com  ) to determine which
programs are consuming the CPU time on your box. Here's a simple test:
cd /opt ; ps -el >ps1.out ; sleep 100 ; ps -el >ps2.out ;
diff ps1.out ps2.out
Here's a sample output:
107c107
<  8 O 0  9983  4030  1  51 20 f6725010199  pts/6
0:00 ps
---
>  8 O 0  9988  4030  1  61 20 f6725010199  pts/6
0:00 ps
109c109,110
<  8 S 0  9961  9958  1  41 20 f63c9018  155169641c pts/6
0:03 aos
---
>  8 S 0  9987  9837  0  41 20 f6713668209 f6773298 pts/7
0:00 tar
>  8 S 0  9961  9958  0  41 20 f63c9018  155169641c pts/6
0:03 aos
114c115
<  8 S 0  9837  4883  0  73 20 f63de980224 f674735e pts/7
0:00 create_d
---
>  8 S 0  9837  4883  0  56 20 f63de980224 f63de9f0 pts/7
0:00 create_d
From this, you can see that aos has accumulated 0:03 seconds of CPU
time since startup and that tar has started running. By examining the diff
output and the files you can determine who is accumulating time and how
fast.

Hope this helps - Check those deltas and fastest_rsr!


Regards,


Alex Johnson
10707 Haddington
Houston, TX 77043
713.722.2859 (office)
713.722.2700 (switchboard)
713.932.0222 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  


-Original Message-
From:   Davis, Robert N. [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent:   Wednesday, April 18, 2001 12:02 PM
To: Foxboro DCS Mail List
Subject:FW: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

This note came to me from our Decatur plant.  Any suggestions?

We are looking at a problem that is going to be experienced by other
plants
in the future. We have a Foxboro I/A system here on our Cogen plant.
We have
AW51s (A series) and V6.1 software. We recently installed the OSI PI
system
onto one of our AW51s. What was already a slow box has become almost
unusable. We have received a lot of complaints from the plant
operators -
especially about the graphic call up speed.

We have talked about upgrading the boxes to the latest AW51s

RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Ball, Patrick G.]

Steve,
I was originally told that the problem was with the twin processors
on the C box (A SUN problem???). The fix was to disable one of the
processor, but we were upgrading for a faster machine. I think that is why
they changed to D and E boxes. ???

Patrick
PSDF

> -Original Message-
> From: Murray, Steve [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 2:25 PM
> To:   'Foxboro DCS Mail List'
> Subject:  RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes
> 
> Hi Patrick,
> 
>   We bought a AW51C a few years ago as part of a new system.  It would
> crash
> for no apparent reason and the Foxboro installation team replaced it with
> a
> AW51B before turning the system over to us.  We were later told that
> Foxboro
> quit using the Cs altogether.
> 
> Stephen Murray
> Asarco
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Ball, Patrick G. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 10:59 AM
> To: 'Foxboro DCS Mail List'
> Subject: RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes
> 
> 
> Robert,
>   I am located at the PSDF (Power System Development Facility) her in
> Wilsonville, AL. back a couple of years ago, we upgraded to an AW51C from
> AW51A box (Ver. 4.1). We also have OSI PI system. I thought the A box was
> slow, but when we got our C box, it would run fine without PI running, but
> when PI was started the C box would crash in about 45 minutes. We had to
> get
> an AW51E box to fix the problem. We did work it out since we had just
> upgraded to a C box. I know this probably does not answer your question,
> but
> I thought I would throw this in.
> 
> Patrick G. Ball
> Internet Address -- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Intercompany -- 8-824-5877
> Bell Phone -- 1-205-670-5877
> Beeper -- 1-877-986-6814
> 
> 
> This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential
> information. If you have received this transmission in error, please
> delete
> it and notify the sender. The contents of this E-mail are the opinion of
> the
> writer only and are not endorsed by ASARCO Inc. unless expressly stated
> otherwise.
> 
> ---
> This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All 
> postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty 
> is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated 
> through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the 
> list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to
> 
> your application of information received from this mailing list.
> 
> To be removed from this list, send mail to 
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> with "unsubscribe foxboro" in the Subject. Or, send any mail to
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Fitzgerrell Kevin]

While upgrading all your AWs to E boxes will probably alleviate your
problems it may not be necessary.

-- As others have noted, get PI and other programs (AIM*, etc...) off
the AW51A boxes, only the interface needs to run there.  
-- Take a look at your API tuning -- B0193MD section 8 for parameters.
-- Optimize OM lists used by all applications, some explanation of
tools in B0193JB.  
-- Optimize operator graphics -- especially if you have very complex
graphics.  Are you running DM or FoxView?  Look at grouping, overlaps
and overlap checking, normal vs overstrike text, fast objects, total
file size, etc...  If you had slow display callup before PI, this area
deserves some attention.
-- Take a look at how much data PI is sampling and how fast.  Can you
reduce the sampling rate?
-- Is your bottleneck specifically with the 51As or has PI added
additional OM loading to the entire system (ie, older/slower CPs and
gateways).
-- Consider adding 51D/E boxes in strategic locations rather than
upgrading plant wide.

Regards,

Kevin FitzGerrell


"Davis, Robert N." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   
  
This note came to me from our Decatur plant.  Any suggestions?

We are looking at a problem that is going to be experienced by other
plants
in the future. We have a Foxboro I/A system here on our Cogen plant. We
have
AW51s (A series) and V6.1 software. We recently installed the OSI PI
system
onto one of our AW51s. What was already a slow box has become almost
unusable. We have received a lot of complaints from the plant operators
-
especially about the graphic call up speed.

We have talked about upgrading the boxes to the latest AW51s (series D
or
E)
to speed things up. Unfortunately we are being quoted $100,000 by
Foxboro.
What makes this worse is that we know we can buy the boxes from Sun
direct
for 30% of the Foxboro price and Foxboro are charging us $50,000 for
software licenses. Foxboro are not being very helpful at this time.
When we
proposed buying the boxes from Sun, Foxboro refused to support these
boxes.

We are wondering if it is technically possible to buy the new boxes
from
Sun
and try to load the existing software on ourselves. This would mean
that we
are using the same software licenses but should get a better
performance.
We
have asked Foxboro about this and been told that it is not possible
because
we need to buy new licenses from Sun. We have asked Sun about this and
they
have told us that we do not need new licenses but they do not know if
this
would work.

Does anyone have any thoughts/experience in this matter. Is this
possible
or
are we missing something somewhere?

All comments gratefully received


Bob Davis
Process Control Engineer
765-477-5317---Fax 765-474-9036
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]


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If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for
delivering the e-mail to the intended recipient, be advised that you
have
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_
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- Now showing: Dude Where's My Car, The Wedding Planner, Traffic..

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RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Murray, Steve]

Hi Patrick,

  Foxboro did mention the dual processors were the probable culprit - but we
were trying to start our plant up and the D's & E's were not available then
so we wound up with a B.

  Found out that Sun does not sell the Ultra model that Foxboro uses for the
AW51E any more, so I wonder what the next generation of AW's will be .  .  .

Steve

-Original Message-
From: Ball, Patrick G. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 1:08 PM
To: 'Foxboro DCS Mail List'
Subject: RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes


Steve,
I was originally told that the problem was with the twin processors
on the C box (A SUN problem???). The fix was to disable one of the
processor, but we were upgrading for a faster machine. I think that is why
they changed to D and E boxes. ???

Patrick
PSDF

> -Original Message-
> From: Murray, Steve [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 2:25 PM
> To:   'Foxboro DCS Mail List'
> Subject:  RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes
> 
> Hi Patrick,
> 
>   We bought a AW51C a few years ago as part of a new system.  It would
> crash
> for no apparent reason and the Foxboro installation team replaced it with
> a
> AW51B before turning the system over to us.  We were later told that
> Foxboro
> quit using the Cs altogether.
> 
> Stephen Murray
> Asarco
This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential
information. If you have received this transmission in error, please delete
it and notify the sender. The contents of this E-mail are the opinion of the
writer only and are not endorsed by ASARCO Inc. unless expressly stated
otherwise.

---
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postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty 
is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated 
through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the 
list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to 
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RE: FW: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Klobuchar, Bob]

Bob,

I would echo Neil's advice to run the PI system on a separate PC/server. We
are currently running Aspen this way, but also did run a trial with PI. The
interfaces ran on a AP51A box with no noticable change in performance, so
I'm sure your AW51 would be more than adequate. We started out running the
Aspen (and PI) on a Gateway desktop PC but since have moved it over to a
Compaq Proliant server. Going this route will give you MUCH more bang for
your buck!

Bob Klobuchar
Sr. Process Engineer
CF Industries, Inc.


-Original Message-
From: Neil Martin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 3:23 PM
To: Foxboro DCS Mail List
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: FW: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes



Before you spend money on new AWs, I hope you have reviewed the
possibilities of adding more memory, reducing your PI data parameters to
reduce the changes per minute rate, and made sure your OM () lists are
optimized.  Are you running the PI server on your AW?  If so, I would
recommend changing it and only running the interface on the AW.  Use a
separate computer for the PI Server.






 

"Davis, Robert N."

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>   To: Foxboro DCS
Mail List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: cc:

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: FW:
Upgrading Foxboro Boxes 
oject.org>

 

 

04/18/01 12:02 PM

Please respond to "Foxboro

DCS Mail List"

 

 





This note came to me from our Decatur plant.  Any suggestions?

We are looking at a problem that is going to be experienced by other plants
in the future. We have a Foxboro I/A system here on our Cogen plant. We
have
AW51s (A series) and V6.1 software. We recently installed the OSI PI system
onto one of our AW51s. What was already a slow box has become almost
unusable. We have received a lot of complaints from the plant operators -
especially about the graphic call up speed.

We have talked about upgrading the boxes to the latest AW51s (series D or
E)
to speed things up. Unfortunately we are being quoted $100,000 by Foxboro.
What makes this worse is that we know we can buy the boxes from Sun direct
for 30% of the Foxboro price and Foxboro are charging us $50,000 for
software licenses. Foxboro are not being very helpful at this time. When we
proposed buying the boxes from Sun, Foxboro refused to support these boxes.

We are wondering if it is technically possible to buy the new boxes from
Sun
and try to load the existing software on ourselves. This would mean that we
are using the same software licenses but should get a better performance.
We
have asked Foxboro about this and been told that it is not possible because
we need to buy new licenses from Sun. We have asked Sun about this and they
have told us that we do not need new licenses but they do not know if this
would work.

Does anyone have any thoughts/experience in this matter. Is this possible
or
are we missing something somewhere?

All comments gratefully received


Bob Davis
Process Control Engineer
765-477-5317---Fax 765-474-9036
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]


This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for
delivering the e-mail to the intended recipient, be advised that you have
received this e-mail in error, and that any use, dissemination, forwarding,
printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited.  If you have
received this e-mail in error, please notify the TLNA HELPDESK at
800-404-2436 or e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

---
This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All
postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty
is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated
through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the
list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to
your application of information received from this mailing list.

To be removed from this list, send mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
with "unsubscribe foxboro" in the Subject. Or, send any mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]





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postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty 
is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated 
through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the 
list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to 
your application of information received from this mailing list.

To be removed from this

Re: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Darryl Bond]

"Ball, Patrick G." wrote:
> 
> Steve,
> I was originally told that the problem was with the twin processors
> on the C box (A SUN problem???). 
I don't think it was a Sun problem. 
Here is the output of 2 dual processor Sparc20 & Sparc10 sun boxes (non
Foxboro) 
[dbond@dino dbond]$ psrinfo -v
Status of processor 0 as of: 04/19/01 08:35:42
  Processor has been on-line since 12/10/99 13:44:13.
  The sparc processor operates at 75 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.
Status of processor 2 as of: 04/19/01 08:35:42
  Processor has been on-line since 12/10/99 13:44:17.
  The sparc processor operates at 75 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.
[dbond@dino dbond]$ uptime
  8:35am  up 495 day(s), 18:52,  5 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.02,
0.03


[dbond@goofy dbond]$ psrinfo -v
Status of processor 0 as of: 04/19/01 08:34:04
  Processor has been on-line since 11/19/99 06:15:10.
  The sparc processor operates at 60 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.
Status of processor 2 as of: 04/19/01 08:34:04
  Processor has been on-line since 11/19/99 06:15:14.
  The sparc processor operates at 60 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.
[dbond@goofy dbond]$ uptime
  8:34am  up 517 day(s),  2:19,  8 users,  load average: 0.06, 0.05,
0.06
[dbond@goofy dbond]$


> The fix was to disable one of the
> processor, but we were upgrading for a faster machine. I think that is why
> they changed to D and E boxes. ???
We used the Foxboro upgrade to 150Mhz single processor which fixed the
lockups which we saw with the AW51C. This is the report from an upgraded
AW51C
[dbond@6GA111 dbond]$ psrinfo -v
Status of processor 0 as of: 04/19/01 08:42:03
  Processor has been on-line since 05/23/00 09:22:16.
  The sparc processor operates at 150 MHz,
and has a sparc floating point processor.
[dbond@6GA111 dbond]$ uptime
  8:42am  up 330 day(s), 23:20,  2 users,  load average: 0.30, 0.18,
0.15  

Darryl Bond
  
> 
> Patrick
> PSDF
> 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Murray, Steve [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 2:25 PM
> > To:   'Foxboro DCS Mail List'
> > Subject:  RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes
> >
> > Hi Patrick,
> >
> >   We bought a AW51C a few years ago as part of a new system.  It would
> > crash
> > for no apparent reason and the Foxboro installation team replaced it with
> > a
> > AW51B before turning the system over to us.  We were later told that
> > Foxboro
> > quit using the Cs altogether.
> >
> > Stephen Murray
> > Asarco
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Ball, Patrick G. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 10:59 AM
> > To: 'Foxboro DCS Mail List'
> > Subject: RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes
> >
> >
> > Robert,
> >   I am located at the PSDF (Power System Development Facility) her in
> > Wilsonville, AL. back a couple of years ago, we upgraded to an AW51C from
> > AW51A box (Ver. 4.1). We also have OSI PI system. I thought the A box was
> > slow, but when we got our C box, it would run fine without PI running, but
> > when PI was started the C box would crash in about 45 minutes. We had to
> > get
> > an AW51E box to fix the problem. We did work it out since we had just
> > upgraded to a C box. I know this probably does not answer your question,
> > but
> > I thought I would throw this in.
> >
> > Patrick G. Ball
> > Internet Address -- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Intercompany -- 8-824-5877
> > Bell Phone -- 1-205-670-5877
> > Beeper -- 1-877-986-6814
> > 
> >
> > This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential
> > information. If you have received this transmission in error, please
> > delete
> > it and notify the sender. The contents of this E-mail are the opinion of
> > the
> > writer only and are not endorsed by ASARCO Inc. unless expressly stated
> > otherwise.
> >
> > ---
> > This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All
> > postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty
> > is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated
> > through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the
> > list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to
> >
> > your application of information received from this mailing list.
> >
> > To be removed from this list, send mail to
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > with "unsubscribe foxboro" in the Subject. Or, send any mail to
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> ---
> This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company. All
> postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty
> is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated
> through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the
> list sponso

What garbage files to erase?

[Eudilson Núñez Cossio]

Hi list,
Can I to erase the folloging cores on an AW51B machine v6.1.2 and several
.dat log files on / (root directory)?  Other recomendations about your
causes and useful task to mantain the hard disk with enough space to work
normally? Thanks.

/opt/fox/wp/FoxDraw/core
/opt/piapi/bin/core
/opt/piapi/interfaces/fxbais/core
/core   


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postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no warranty 
is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated 
through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the 
list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur due to 
your application of information received from this mailing list.

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RE: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

[Hicks, Gaylon F.]

You can pick up a refurbished SUN SPARC 5 180 MHz box for about $1000, or a
110 MHz for about $600.  This is the faster 51B box, and the 180 MHz should
be pretty snappy.  We upgraded from 51A to 51B (old 85 MHz boxes) and saw a
big improvement.  I don't know exactly what else you need, but make sure you
get a TurboGX frame buffer card (I know these are Foxboro OEM and will
work).  Also, load up on memory - 128 MB minimum.

I know not the legalities involved, but technically this will work.

Gaylon Hicks
TVA - Browns Ferry NP

--
From:  Davis, Robert N.[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent:  Wednesday, April 18, 2001 12:02 PM
To:  Foxboro DCS Mail List
Subject:  FW: Upgrading Foxboro Boxes

This note came to me from our Decatur plant.  Any suggestions?

We are looking at a problem that is going to be experienced by other
plants
in the future. We have a Foxboro I/A system here on our Cogen plant.
We have
AW51s (A series) and V6.1 software. We recently installed the OSI PI
system
onto one of our AW51s. What was already a slow box has become almost
unusable. We have received a lot of complaints from the plant
operators -
especially about the graphic call up speed.

We have talked about upgrading the boxes to the latest AW51s (series
D or E)
to speed things up. Unfortunately we are being quoted $100,000 by
Foxboro.
What makes this worse is that we know we can buy the boxes from Sun
direct
for 30% of the Foxboro price and Foxboro are charging us $50,000 for
software licenses. Foxboro are not being very helpful at this time.
When we
proposed buying the boxes from Sun, Foxboro refused to support these
boxes.

We are wondering if it is technically possible to buy the new boxes
from Sun
and try to load the existing software on ourselves. This would mean
that we
are using the same software licenses but should get a better
performance. We
have asked Foxboro about this and been told that it is not possible
because
we need to buy new licenses from Sun. We have asked Sun about this
and they
have told us that we do not need new licenses but they do not know
if this
would work.

Does anyone have any thoughts/experience in this matter. Is this
possible or
are we missing something somewhere?

All comments gratefully received


Bob Davis
Process Control Engineer
765-477-5317---Fax 765-474-9036
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]


This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and
intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are
addressed.
If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for
delivering the e-mail to the intended recipient, be advised that you
have
received this e-mail in error, and that any use, dissemination,
forwarding,
printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited.  If you
have
received this e-mail in error, please notify the TLNA HELPDESK at
800-404-2436 or e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]


---
This list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by the Foxboro Company.
All 
postings from this list are the work of list subscribers and no
warranty 
is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information
disseminated 
through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold
the 
list sponsor(s) blameless for any and all mishaps which might occur
due to 
your application of information received from this mailing list.

To be removed from this list, send mail to 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
with "unsubscribe foxboro" in the Subject. Or, send any mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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is made or implied as to the accuracy of any information disseminated 
through this medium. By subscribing to this list you agree to hold the 
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your application of information received from this mailing list.

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