Methodology

Understanding best practice architecture is important prior to installation.  Whenever possible, Canary Collectors and the Sender should be installed local to the data source.  Typically the Canary Historian and other components are installed on a separate server.

The default method for sending data to the Canary Historian is using Store and Forward (SaF) Technology. This consists of two Canary modules, the Sender and the Receiver that services and communicate with each other through a single specified firewall port.

With SaF, each Data Collector is paired with a Sender that buffers data passed into it and communicates that data in real time to the specified Receiver.

When the connection between the Sender and Receiver Service is sound, the Receiver Service passes the data into the Canary Historian. If the connection is broken, the Sender caches data to the local disk, backfilling when the connection is reestablished.

System Requirements

Both the Sender and the Canary Data Collectors require very low resources and can be installed on nearly any modern Windows machine.  Follow these steps to ensure successful data logging to the Canary System.

1. Determine the type of Data Collector required.
2. Identify whether the data source can host the Data Collector and Sender.  Recommendations are as follows but can be reduced if data load is light.
   • Windows OS (required)
   • Quad core processor
   • 4 GB RAM
   • Suitable disk space for potential data buffering
   • .NET Framework 4.7.1 or greater (required)
3. Install appropriate software using the Canary System Installer.

Install the Sender Service and Data Collector

Again, best practice is to install these components local to the data source (e.g., on the OPC server or SCADA server). 

1. Use the received download link to download the Canary Installer from a Canary representative.
2. Run the file 'CanaryInstaller-*.*.*.exe' with elevated privileges.
3. Deselect all items and choose only the 'Canary Admin Service', 'Store & Forward', and applicable Data Collector.
4. Select 'Install' and complete the installation.
5. When the status bar is solid green and the 'Success' message appears, the installation is complete.

Configure Security Endpoints

1. Log into the machine that has the Canary Historian installed on it. If the Canary Historian and other Canary System components have yet to be installed, finish this step.  Information on how to do this can be found here.
2. Open the Canary Admin and select the 'Receiver' tile.
3. Select 'Configuration' and ensure 'Endpoints' is selected at left.

The Receiver Service can be configured to allow all Senders to push data to the historian, or it can only allow secure Senders, depending on configurable security preferences.

• 'Net.TCP-Anonymous (Local Only)' signifies that the local Sender Service is allowed to push data to the Receiver, this is always enabled.
• To enable security, select 'Net.TCP-Username' and ensure Port 55256 is available.  The port may be changed if necessary. With Security enabled, data is pushed across a network via an encrypted channel. If using this endpoint, Sender client machines initially connecting will first appear on the Receiver Tile>Configuration>Senders 'DENY' list and will need to be 'ALLOWED'.
• To allow all remote Senders to connect to the Receiver, select 'Net.TCP-Anonymous' and ensure Port 55255 is available. The port may be changed if necessary.