Remotely monitoring/diagnosing distributed components of a supervisory process control and manufacturing information application from a central location

• US 7,831,410 B2
• Filed: 05/24/2006
• Issued: 11/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Schneider Electric Software, LLC (Schneider Electric SE)
• Original Assignee: Invensys Systems Incorporated (Invensys PLC)
• Inventors: Rowley, Kevin G., Mody, Pankaj H., McIntyre, James P., Jones, Derrick C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wachsman; Hal D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Huynh; Phuong
• Application Number:
  US11/439,866
• Publication Number:
  US 20060224361A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,630 Days
• Field of Search: 702183-189, 702/1, 700/3, 700/9
• US Class Current: 702/183
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0216 Human interface functionality, e.g. monitoring system providing help to the user in the selection of tests or in its configuration

Abstract

A centralized diagnostics management tool is disclosed that facilitates centralized monitoring of distributed components of a supervisory process control and manufacturing information application. The centralized diagnostics management tool includes a diagnostics management console shell that is customized according to a set of software modules that interface to data sources to populate views supported by the console shell. The console shell includes a set of view templates including controls for manipulating graphically displayed representations of data rendered by the distributed components. The console shell also includes an interface for exchanging requests and data with an extensible set of software modules that provide data links to ones of the set of distributed components. The software modules also define the customizable portions of the view rendered by the console shell.

Claims

1. A control system including:

a control application comprising a set of software objects distributable to a plurality of networked computer devices, and wherein the set of software objects comprises both host software objects and hosted software objects;

a centralized diagnostics management tool facilitating monitoring operational status of the set of software objects of the control application; and

wherein the set of software objects include;

application objects that model entities within the control system,

engine objects that host execution of the application objects in a run-time environment, and

platform objects, corresponding to a physical computer system component for executing the engine objects and associated application objects, the platform objects each hosting one or more of the engine objects.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the centralized diagnostics management tool comprises a set of view templates having controls for manipulating graphically displayed representations of data associated with the set of software objects.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the set of view templates includes a tree view that is populated by representations of selectable software objects.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the set of view templates includes a work area populated by exposed attributes of a selected one of the selectable software objects.

5. The system of claim 3 further comprising security measures for limiting access to the selectable software objects.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the centralized diagnostics management tool comprises an interface customization software interface for integrating an extensible set of software modules providing access to ones of the set of software objects.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the centralized diagnostics management tool comprises a set of software modules that submit requests to the set of software objects to access exposed operational status attributes of the set of software objects.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the set of software objects comprises an object corresponding to a physical computer system component.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the application objects are distributed across a set of remote computer systems.

10. The system of claim 7 wherein the set of software modules access diagnostic data relating to the operational status of a real time process control information database.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein the set of software modules access diagnostic data relating to the operational status of a data access server.

12. The system of claim 7 wherein the set of software modules provide bi-directional access to the set of software objects.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the bi-directional access includes issuing commands to the software objects.

14. The system of claim 7 wherein the set of software modules comprise snap-in modules that provide data and interface control definitions for accessing and displaying remotely deployed software objects.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein a single host software object of the set of software objects hosts multiple hosted software objects.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein the engine objects and platform objects address aspects of the application relating to physical computing device configurations upon which the application executes, and wherein the application objects execute independently of the physical computing device configurations.

17. The system of claim 1 wherein the platform objects include a set of attributes for configuring and controlling a set of engines deployed on the platform objects.

18. The system of claim 1 wherein the engine objects include a set of command attributes associated with managing application objects.