XMII Connector 15.5 - UDC

[robert_altenstraer]

Hi all,

we plan an upgrade from XMII 15.3 to 15.4 and in "Whats New in SAP MII " I found:

SAP MII does not support the universal data connector (UDC), you can use SAP Plant Connectivity (PCo) alternatively.

https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_MANUFACTURING_INTEGRATION_AND_INTELLIGENCE/93c4d36394f64e059903afcb7d8...

What does this mean:

> UDC is not availble any more, and I have to move to PCo Connections and PcoQueries ?

> UDC is available, but its "only" outdated and it is not supported any more ?

Thanks Robert

[steve_stubbs · Accepted solution]

Hi Robert,

UDC has been deprecated for a while (years). Yes you will have to do the following:

1. Install PCo on a separate Server than MII (recommended)
2. Create your Data Sources (OPC DA, etc.) in PCo, along with a corresponding Agent Instance for each data source you will create in MII. NOTE: Any OPC Servers (OPC DA or OPC UA (recommended over DA) should be installed on the same server as PCo where possible. Note that OPC DA DCOM has been significantly hardened by Microsoft and is a challenge to get correctly deployed. Unless you have a legacy OPC DA DCOM server that you are required to use, most OPC Servers offer OPC UA and OPC UA Historian connectivity.
3. Create Data Servers in MII for each of your different PCo Data Sources (Agent Instances).
4. Create PCoQuery templates for each of the UDC Query templates you have defined, and test each one.
5. Replace all UDC Queries with the new PCoQuery in any transactions using UDC Query.

This is a bit of work but is relatively straightforward once you have a basic understanding of how PCo works. You will find that PCo has a lot more capability than UDC.

Also, you can you can set up your new PCo/OPC Server system first, and do some migration testing on your MII 15.3 DEV instance to get started and find any potential conversion issues.

Regards, Steve

[robert_altenstraer · Accepted solution]

Thanks Steve,

does it mean the UDC is not available any more since 15.4, and it´s mandatory to change to Pco Connection & pco Query in front of Upgrade ?

If I don´t change the connection and delete the UDC connections....the upgrade will run on error ?

Robert

[steve_stubbs · Accepted solution]

Hi Robert,

With MII 15.4, the UDC Data Server is no longer offered for configuration in MII; neither are the UDC Query templates.

I would recommend that you migrate your UDC configurations to PCo and PCo Query templates *before* migrating to 15.4. I suspect that the upgrade will fail as these objects don't have an MII object definition to reference.

If you have the resources, you could stand up a "sandbox" 15.3 instance, export/import your current 15.3 projects to this sandbox, and then attempt the upgrade to see what happens. I have serious doubts that, even if the sandbox upgrade were successful, your MDO objects would work or even be visible.

Regards, Steve

[robert_altenstraer · Accepted solution]

Hello Steve,..

thanks for the info... now it´s clear and I have a better idea how to calculate the upgrade project...

next step: upgrade in a Sandbox. Parallel reduce UDC configs & change to PCO Queries..

Robert