MONITORING APPLICATION STATES FOR DEPLOYMENT DURING RUNTIME OPERATIONS

• US 20170177322A1
• Filed: 12/21/2015
• Published: 06/22/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Schneider Electric Software, LLC (Schneider Electric SE)
• Original Assignee: Invensys Systems Incorporated (Invensys PLC)
• Inventors: Clark, Scott William, Andersen, Niels Erik
• Granted Patent: US 9,703,546 B1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/368 for test version control, e.g. updating test cases to a new software version
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57

Abstract

Interaction between development environments and runtime environments to ensure that underlying process components are in an acceptable state before deploying application updates. A deploy state monitor in a development environment interacts with runtime values in executing applications to manage deployment requests and states of executing applications.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a server computing device coupled to a control device by a communications network; and

processor-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium, said processor-executable instructions including instructions that, when executed by the server computing device, provide;

a development environment, the development environment associated with a runtime environment provided by the control device,

an instance of an application object executing in the development environment, the instance of the application object executing in the development environment corresponding to an instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment,

interaction between the development environment and a deploy state monitor to monitor transitions of the control device to a safe state, the deploy state monitor executing within the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment, and

deployment of an update to the application object executing in the runtime environment after the deploy state monitor indicates the control device has transitioned to the safe state.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the interaction comprises the deploy state monitor setting a request parameter to indicate initiation of the deployment.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the interaction further comprises the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment setting a ready parameter in response to the request parameter to indicate the operational state of the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment is ready for the deployment.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the interaction further comprises the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment setting an abort parameter in response to the request parameter to cause the deployment to be aborted.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the interaction further comprises the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment setting a lock parameter in response to the request parameter to prevent modification of the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the interaction comprises the deploy state monitor setting a force parameter to indicate the deployment has a high priority.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the control device controls a device of a continuous process during deployment of the update.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the application object executing in the runtime environment transitions a device of a continuous process into an idle state in response to the interaction.

9. A method of deploying an update of an application object during a runtime operation, comprising:

executing a deploy state monitor within a runtime environment via processor-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium of a control device, wherein the control device is coupled to a computing device by a communications medium, and wherein the computing device is configured to provide a development environment associated with the runtime environment via processor-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium of the computing device;

providing an instance of an application object within the development environment via the processor-executable instructions;

initiating a deployment of an update of the application object within the development environment to an instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment;

interacting, by the deploy state monitor, with the instance of the application object executing in the development environment to monitor a transition of the control device to a safe state for the deployment; and

deploying the update in the runtime environment via the communications medium responsive to the interacting.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the interacting includes setting, by the deploy state monitor, a request parameter to indicate initiation of the deployment.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the interacting further includes setting a ready parameter by the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment in response to the request parameter to indicate the operational state of the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment is ready for the deployment.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the interacting further includes setting an abort parameter by the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment in response to the request parameter to cause the deployment to be aborted.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the interacting further includes setting a lock parameter by the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment in response to the request parameter to prevent modification of the instance of the application object executing in the runtime environment.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the interacting includes setting, by the deploy state monitor, a force parameter to indicate the deployment has a high priority.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising controlling, by the control device, a device within a continuous process during the deploying step.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising transitioning, by the control device, a device within a continuous process into an idle state in response to the interacting step.

17. A system, comprising:

a controller coupled to an industrial process, wherein the controller includes a processor executing processor-executable instructions to provide a runtime execution environment;

a computing device coupled to the controller by a communications network, wherein the computing device includes a processor executing processor-executable instructions to provide a development environment associated with the runtime environment;

wherein processor-executable instructions comprising a deploy state monitor executing within the runtime execution environment are configured to interact with processor-executable instructions comprising an application object executing within the development environment to monitor transitions of an operational state of the application object executing in the runtime execution environment; and

wherein the processor-executable instructions comprising the deploy state monitor are configured to initiate deployment of an update of the application object from the development environment to the runtime execution environment after the operational state of the application object executing in the runtime execution environment transitions to a safe state.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the controller is configured to control one or more devices comprising the industrial process by executing the application object within the runtime execution environment.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the deploy state monitor is configured to interact with the application through one or more parameters implemented by processor-executable instructions.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the deploy state monitor is configured to interact with the application through an application programming interface associated with the controller.