Read Foreign OpenPDC Archive Files

GPA Products openPDC
1

I have received 1.2TB of OpenPDC archive files. The OpenPDC server that created these files is on an isolated network and I do not have access to it. How can I read the data in these archive files? My initial search has not led me to an answer. Also, is it possible to convert the the .d files to the OpenHistorian .d2 format?

Thanks,
Jeff Banning

2

Hello Jeff,

You should be able to read openHistorian 1.0 archives using the Historian Trending Tool (HistorianView.exe) which is included with the openPDC installation. This tool allows you to query, visualize, and export to CSV or COMTRADE.

I don’t think I’m the best person to provide suggestions on how to convert your data to the openHistorian 2.0 format. I believe Ritchie has done it before so he may have some ideas. I’ll have to defer to him.

Thanks,
Stephen

3

Stephen,
Thanks for the tip. That was easy. For whatever reason I thought it needed the local OpenPDC database to get the signal names, description, etc.

That gets me started but ultimately we hope to move these up to the openHistorian 2.0 format. Hopefully Ritchie can provide some guidance.

Jeff

4

I am making progress converting offline OpenPDC .d files to OpenHistorian .d2 files but I need some additional assistance to actually do something with the converted .d2 files.

I was able to use the Archive Upgrade Utility to convert a bunch of .d files to .d2. I then went into OpenHistorian and added a new Historian Instance pointing to the new d2 folder. When I go into the web manager Trend/Export, it lists the new instance but when selected, 0 records are found. When I try the standalone Historian Trending Tool and point to the new instance, I crash the program.

Hopefully I am close and just need that final configuration step to make all of this work.

Jeff

5

It’s likely that the tag defintions are missing. The easiest thing to do (which is not necessarily “simple”) is to convert your openPDC database which has the point configuration over to your openHistorian database. Here are some instructions:

Thanks!
Ritchie

6

Ritchie,
Thanks for the link. The problem I have is that I don’t have the OpenPDC database, just the .d archive files. Am I stuck without the OpenPDC database?

Jeff Banning

7

Well if you have the original ???-dbase.dat or ???-dbase.dat2 file, this contains a condensed set of the original metadata. It’s possible, with a little work, to use this to recreate the metadata…