Getting Started - Advanced Level

This How-To aims at describing how to set up many CS system on many PCs. Before starting do the following:

1. Install a minimalistic CS system on all PCs according to Getting Started - Basic Level .
2. Install the tools required for database connectivity as described in Getting Started - Medium Level on one PC.

The main difference to the Getting Started - Medium Level is the setting up of distributed CS systems in a so called CS domain.

Important

1. Each CS system must have a unique name.
2. You can have more than one CS system per PC.
3. You can have one or more PCs.
4. All PCs (or accounts you are using on those) need to be configured with the same environment variable DIM_DNS_NODE. (All CS systems in a distributed CS domain must be part of the same DIM domain).
5. In principle, you may have more than one CS domain within one DIM domain. However, this is not recommended to avoid name clashes of DIM sevices.

Download and Installation

This is just an example for two CS systems. In principle, you could have as many CS systems as you like.

1. Download and install the package DomainManagementSystem.
2. Choose a second name for a second CS system.
3. Configure the configuration data base with a second object of the SuperProc class.
4. Configure the Domain Management System by starting the DMSServer. At this step, just configure two PCs with one CS system each. Set the "start" mode of the CS systems to manual.

Operation

Check for DIM installation and configuration before you continue!

1. On each PC, start one CS system manually.
2. Enter the "domainName"
3. Enter the CS systemname in "systemID"
4. Enter the name of your ODBC data source
5. Enter the node of your CSSqlServer
6. Press "Set"
7. CS will now start
8. Have a look at the Object Inspector. Note, that you can now select to view each of your CS systems.
9. Have a look at the General Object GUI. Try to add and create the objects of the BaseProcess class you have configured previously. Note, that you can also configure and create objects on the "remote" CS system.

Command Line Parameters

When you launch LabVIEW or a stand-alone executable from the command line, you can pass user-defined arguments to the application. User-defined arguments start after two hyphens (––) surrounded by spaces in the command line. "APPLICATIONNAME -- arg1 arg2 ...", please note the double "-", which is LabVIEW specific. It is recommended to start all CS systems with the following command line parameters:

• arg1: "domainName", name of CS domain as specified in the DomainManagementSystem server. This parameter must be identical for all CS systems within a CS domain.
• arg2: "systemID", name of the ID of a CS system. Each CS system must have a unique system ID within a CS domain.
• arg3: "dataSource", name of the ODBC datasource that is used.
• arg4: "sqlServerNode", name of the Windows node, where the CSSqlServer.exe program runs.
• arg5: "DIM_DNS_NODE" (optional), name of node running the DIM name server. This parameter is optional. Typically, "DIM_DNS_NODE" is defined via an environment variable. This parameter is useful, if one wants to use a DIM name server, that is different from the one defined in the environment variables.

Also it is recommended to define the path to the CS-Executable in the enviroment variable "PATH". So you can start the CS-system without typing in the path to the file, what is an advantage to the DMS server/client construct.

-- DietrichBeck - 15 Sep 2006