Deploying Applications

Local and Distributed Systems

FactoryStudio supports many deployment scenarios such as:

• Embedded devices with no local user interface.
• Stand-alone panels or computers with local user interface.
• Distributed systems with many client stations accessing a server.
• Redundant servers with multiple users connected.

The setup procedures for each scenario have many common steps. For all the systems, even the stand-alone installations, FactoryStudio makes use of a client-server architecture.

The server components are the project file and the modules that run the server side tasks, such as data-acquisition, alarms and data logging. The client components are the graphical user interfaces and related scripts.

When you have a local or stand-alone project the server and the client components run on the same machine.

The client technologies used by FactoryStudio simplify deployment, since you have to install the project only on the server computer. All the client stations will use the project from the server.

In order to setup the server components or stand-alone configurations refer to the following sections: "Product Installation on the Target Computer", "License and Project Settings Verification", and "Installing the Project File".

The client setup can be slightly different according to its type. FactoryStudio supports the following client technologies:

• Windows rich clients
• Windows smart clients
• Windows web-based clients
• HTML5 clients
• iOS clients

For more on these client types see "Remote Client Users Setup" below.

If you need to use Active-X, COM, and JavaScript, you can access the runtime application using the DataAccess API, which is a COM interface to provide integration with Active-X, JavaScript on web pages, or legacy programming languages such as VBScript. Contact support for assistance. 

For redundant scenarios see "Deploying Redundant Systems" below.

Installing the Project File

A project is installed as a single file, either the main configuration file (with extension "tproj") or a read-only file (with extension "trun") if you have created one.

The Project Management utility allows you to connect with remote servers and download the project file to remote computers.

Although that one file contains the entire project configuration, you should use the following checklist to ensure that any external dependencies are also taken care of.

• If the folder structure on the production computer is not the same as on the computer you used for development, make sure that all the places you have file paths in your project are mapped correctly to the production computer. FactoryStudio has many features and macros to define paths relative to the project location, product installation or execution path; whenever possible avoid using fixed path locations in your projects.
• Any external WPF controls should also be copied to the target computer. For remote web access those files should be located in the folder WpfControl and the utility to update the web manifest must be executed.
• If the application references external DLL or .NET assemblies, ensure they are available and at the correct paths on the target computer.
• If the project uses Retentive values, you must decide if the target computer will create a new Retentive database or if you will copy one with some predefined values.
• Enable the firewall to allow remote clients. Ports 3101 for startup (optionally port 3201 to Test Mode). For web and iOS clients, data web services are enabled on port 80.
• If the application uses external DLLs, WpfControls, configuration files or embedded databases, make sure you copy those files to the target machine and double check if the PATHNAMES you used in the project configuration are compatible.

Setup the Server to Start the Runtime

You can run the project in any of the following ways:

• Start manually. From the FactoryStudio main window and project list, right-click the project and select Run Project.
• Start manually. When configuring the project, go to Run > Startup and click Run Startup.
• Start the project automatically, which is the best option for production environments.

The best way to define an automated startup of the product, it is to use the configuration interface available on the Project Management tools, at the Server tab.

We recommend that you start manually during project development or installation, where an operator is needed during the startup process. When your project is setup for production, automated startup is more suitable.

You should use the login option, the startup shortcut, when testing the project, or in scenarios where the application will always run in the same Windows user profile. 

Use the Windows Service on production servers when you need different Windows users to login to the computer, while keeping the server side runtime components running at all times. 

We also support OPC client activation, in order to be in full OPC compliance, but we don't recommend its use, because, as a good practice principle, it is not desirable to allow the status of remote client connections to control whether a server side application is running.

The following sections will describe what those automated settings are doing in case, for some reason, you need to setup those startup settings without using the configuration tools. 

Using a Shortcut on Windows Startup

You can configure a Windows server to automatically start a project using a startup shortcut. The startup shortcut starts the application when a user logs in to Windows, and the application stops running when the user logs off of Windows.

This procedure is automatically executed by the system when the startup mode is selected, as described above. This section will explain how to manually setup those shortcuts.

The Project runtime startup is executed by the program TStartup.exe.

When using this example, make sure to change the installation path and version of FactoryStudio to the installation on your computer. 

The project is started from a command line window. The following command line parameters are available:

/project: Project Path and Name between double quotes
/username: (optional), username that will be used to start the server , if you do not specify, the user guest will be used.
/redundancy: indicates that the server redundancy is being used (requires ip1 and ip2)
/ip1: IP Address of the Primary FactoryStudio Server
/port1: TCP port of the Primary FactoryStudio Server
/ip2: IP Address of the Secondary FactoryStudio Server
/port2: TCP port of the Secondary FactoryStudio Server
/viewonly: indicates that the project is in view only mode
/wa: indicates that the project uses Windows Authentication

The modules that will be started are configured in the project, at Run > Startup.

Creating the shortcut

Go to Start > All Programs, right-click the Startup folder, and select Open.

• In the Startup folder, right-click and select New > Shortcut.
• In the Create Shortcut window, paste into the field that displays.
• If you are not using redundancy, delete the redundancy part of the text.

In the examples below, be sure to change the installation path and version of FactoryStudio to the installation on your computer.

• Type or paste the full command line, for example: "C:\Program Files\Studio\fs-2018.1\TStartup.exe" /project:"C:\Studio Projects\Project1.tproj"
• Click Next.
• Enter a name for the shortcut.
• Click Finish.

When you restart the computer next, the project will start automatically. 

Using a Windows Service to Startup

You can configure a Windows server to automatically start a project when the computer starts using a Windows Service. The Windows Service starts the application as soon as the computer is powered on and the Windows Operating System starts, even if no user has logged in to Windows.

This procedure is automatically executed by the system when selected for startup mode, as described above. This section will explain how to set it up manually.

These methods do not start the client (user interface with the displays). To automate the client startup, see "Automatically Starting Windows Clients", below.

Use the Windows Service only on production servers that you are not using as engineering stations, and only if you need the ability to differentiate Windows users logging in while the project is running. 

The first several steps of the procedure below are required to let you set up the Windows Service.

To run your application as a Windows Service:

• Go to Info > Project > Redundancy.
• Enter or select the information, as needed.

• Next to the Server Command Line field, click Copy to Clipboard. This copies the read-only field that was populated based on the fields above it.
• Open a text file, paste, and continue the next steps in the file.
• If you are not using redundancy, delete the redundancy part of the text.
• At the beginning of the command line, enter or paste the full path to the FactoryStudio installation folder and put quotes around it. It should look something like this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Tatsoft\FactoryStudio\fs-2018.1.1\tStartup.exe"
• Before the "tproj" text, enter or paste the full path to the project. It should look something like this: /project:C:\FactoryStudio Projects\<project_name>.tproj

The whole command line should look something like this:

"C:\ProgramFiles(x86)\Tatsoft\FactoryStudio\fs-2018.1.1\ tStartup.exe" /project:C:\Factory Studio Projects\ <project_name>.tproj /username:<username>

• Leave the text file open for later use.
• From the command line prompt, go to the <.NET Framework Install Path> and execute the following command:

installutil <InstallPath>\<fs-version>\TStartupAsService.exe 
Example: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727>installutil C:\Program files\Tatsoft\FactoryStudio\fs-2018.1\ TStartupAsService.exe

• Copy and paste the command you created in the text file.
• In the Windows Registry, set up the parameters on:

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\ TStartup\ImagePath" 
Example: "C:\\tatsoft\fs-2018.1\TStartupAsService.exe" "/project:C:\FactoryStudio Projects\Project1.tproj"

• In the Windows Services (Administrative Tools), set "TStartup Service" to Automatic, so the selected project will start when the computer starts.

Remote Client Users Setup

Windows Rich Clients

Rich clients are client applications that do a significant amount of processing on the client rather than on the server. You can deploy your application for use by Windows rich clients.

Windows Smart Clients

Smart clients are client applications that behave like rich clients, but either run from the web or can be installed painlessly with a single click. You can deploy your application for use by Windows smart clients. The smart client runs like the rich client, that is, they work the same way, but the smart client uses ClickOnce™ installation. This technology lets you have the same functionality as the rich client, but without having to install FactoryStudio on your computer. 

The first time you access the application, the system automatically downloads the necessary components to run the application. The next time you access the application, the system verifies if the local cache is the same version of the application that is on the server, and if necessary, updates the local cache before running the application. If the version is the same, the application starts immediately.

Windows Web Clients

A web client accesses the application using a web browser. You can deploy your application for use by Windows web clients.

Automatically Starting Windows Clients

You can create a shortcut to the appropriate executable, depending on the client type, to automatically start the application on a Windows client. You can create the shortcut on the desktop or put it into the Startup folder, as described below.

For the web client, you can also configure the application as the home page in Internet Explorer.

To begin, Go to Start > All Programs, right-click the Startup folder, and select Open to open the Startup folder.

• In the Startup folder, right-click and select New > Shortcut.
• In the Create Shortcut window, paste into the field that displays.
• If you are not using redundancy, delete the redundancy part of the text.
• Do one of the following:
  • For a rich client—At the beginning of the command line, enter or paste the full path to the FactoryStudio installation folder and put quotes around it. It should look something like this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Tatsoft\FactoryStudio\fs-2018.1\ TRichClient.exe" /ip1:<IP_address>
  • For a smart or web client—At the beginning of the command line, enter or paste the full path to the Internet Explorer installation folder and put quotes around it. It should look something like this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplorer.exe" http:<IP_address>/fs-2018.1/TSmartClient.application "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplorer.exe" http:<IP_address>/fs-2018.1/TWebClient.Xbap
• Click Next.
• Enter a name for the shortcut.
• Click Finish.

When you next restart the computer, the project will start automatically.

iOS Clients

You can deploy your application for use by iOS clients: iPad, iPhone, and iTouch. For other tablet devices, contact support.

To deploy your project on an iOS device:

• From your iOS device, tap the App Store icon. You can also go to the Apple App Store from iTunes.
• Search for and install the SCADA HMI Client app.
• Start the SCADA HMI Client app.
• Enter the following information:

• Tap Login. The graphics and displays download, then the application starts. The application startup the first time may take a little longer than subsequent startups.

Deploying Redundant Systems

You can configure application redundancy by configuring two computers as servers. One computer will be the primary, and the other will be the secondary or hot standby. If the primary computer or connection to the computer fails, the system automatically fails over to the secondary computer.

If you selected HMI as the Product Family, the redundancy configuration is not available. 

To configure redundancy:

• Go to Info >Project > Redundancy.
• Enter or select the information, as needed.

To automatically start the application on a Windows client:

• Go to Info > Project > Redundancy.
• Enter or select the information, as needed.

• Click the Copy button next to the type of client you want to start automatically.