System Requirements
To run AVEVA Instrumentation you will need the following minimum system configuration:
Hardware
The minimum hardware requirements are:
| CPU |
Pentium II or later |
| Memory |
512MB or greater |
| Available disk space |
50Mb to 150Mb per project database (approx) |
| |
100Mb on local workstation (approx) |
Software
The minimum software requirements are:
| Operating System |
Windows® Xp (with .NET 2.0 or 3.5 Framework) |
| Other software |
Microsoft Excel® 2000, Xp (2002) 2003 or 2007 for Datasheets.
AutoDesk AutoCAD® 2000 to 2009 for CAD drawing generation.
|
AVEVA recommends the following configuration:
- 3.0 GHz Pentium IV or 2.4 GHz Core2® (or equiv.) processor
- 1Gb RAM minimum (2Gb is recommended)
- 1280 x 1024 screen resolution (or higher), 24bit color
- Windows® Xp Pro or Vista® Business
- For larger multi-user projects (3 or more concurrent users): SQL Server® 2000, 2005 orr 2008 database & server (or SQL Server Express® 2005 or 2008)
Database Systems:
AVEVA Instrumentation supports two database systems:
1) Microsoft Access 2002 (or later) and
2) Microsoft SQL Server (2000, 2005 or 2008)
AVEVA Instrumentation also supports SQL Server Express (2005 or 2008) – a free client server database system that can be downloaded from Microsoft’s website.
AVEVA Instrumentation includes the Access database file so clients are not required to have an Access licence to use AVEVA Instrumentation.
Access is suitable for smaller projects requiring no more than 5 users approx. Access can support over 200 concurrent users, however, our testing has shown more than 4 or so users will cause AVEVA Instrumentation to slow significantly. Even with a small number of users SQL Server performance is better.
SQL Server is ideal for projects with larger numbers of users but is also more complex to manage and administer than Access. However, SQL Server will not slow AVEVA Instrumentation even with 30 or more users (assuming you have a reasonable network and server performance i.e a 100Mb/s LAN and dedicated Server).
Apart from speed, where SQL Server is king, AVEVA Instrumentation is functionally identical on either database except the following features which are supported on SQL Server only:
- SQL Server contains an auto generated audit log* of all changes, additions, deletions and AVEVA Instrumentation provides an Audit Manager to allow users to view and query changes by object type (i.e. Instruments, Datasheets, Cable, Drawings etc)
- AVEVA Instrumentation on SQL Server will support user security where users can be restricted to only certain object types (i.e. User 'A' can edit instruments but not datasheets etc)
* AVEVA Instrumentation allows users to view changes between database revisions to view changes, additions & deletions in both Access and SQL Server. However this requires a user to Save a revision at certain key dates or milestones prior to running a ‘compare’ report. AVEVA Instrumentation then reports differences between the current database and any previous (selected) saved revision.
Currently there is no AVEVA Instrumentation utility that allows users to automatically convert one database type to another, so you should consider your choice final for a particular project. (AVEVA can convert databases for a fee).
AVEVA recommends either SQL Server or SQL Server 2005/2008 Express.