Issue
Since I have upgraded my CyberStation it seems that my distribution of Personnel records takes a very long time. Also I have noticed that I am having intermittent communication problems with my field bus controllers, why is this happening?
Environment
Cyberstation
Cause
This could be caused by the new personnel distribution engine. The new personnel distribution system takes advantage of all the workstations running CyberStation to load balance the distribution so not just one workstation will do this. With this feature added it was also necessary to include settings to adjust to optimize the process. Below are the settings and where they can be found.
Resolution
Workstation preferences can be found on the Preferences tab of the workstation editor.
Workstation preferences Line 19 (Added in the 1.62 Version of CyberStation) Enables and disables the immediate distribution of personnel records from this workstation to controllers on the local area network (LAN). A value of “True” is the default. When this feature is enabled, the workstation inspects the status of the database, and if there are pending personnel distribution transactions, it performs the distributions. When to disable this preference — Typically, you would set this preference to “False” if the workstation is running a lot of applications, such as graphics. If there are several workstations at this site, disabling it on the web server may result in better performance. It also gives you the choice of turning it off for a workstation that is shut down at the end of a day. When to enable this preference — Typically, you would set this preference to “True” for workstations that are dedicated servers (running 24 hours per day and seven days per week, typically in a back room) and for other workstations based on the number of distributions and throughput. The more workstations that are distributing, the faster the distribution occurs. NOTE: If you have too many workstations with the above set to true it could actually slow down the distribution to field bus controllers by overwhelming them from different workstations. This could result in slow or no response from field bus controllers when polling them for information. It also could result in very slow personnel distributions to the field bus controllers. It is recommended not to set this to true for all the workstations but only to set it true for a few.
Workstation Preferences Line 20 (Added in the 1.62 Version of CyberStation) Enables and disables the immediate distribution of personnel records from this workstation to controllers on remote access services (RAS) networks. If there are no RAS networks on this site you want to make sure this setting is false, true is the default. This feature should only be set to “True” on workstations that have modems in them used to connect to remote sites. When this feature is enabled, the workstation inspects the status of the database, and if there are pending access distributions, it performs the distributions. General Preferences are found by right-clicking on the Infinity icon in the task tray and selecting General Preferences.
General Preferences Line 12 (Added in the 1.73 version of CyberStation) Number of Concurrent Fieldbus Personnel Distributions — This is the number of concurrent personnel distributions that are sent from each workstation to controllers on each field bus network. The default (and minimum) value is 1. Maximum value is 4. This setting, which works in conjunction with setting 13, improves performance by preventing or large numbers of personnel records from flooding field bus controllers.
General Preferences Line 13 (Added in the 1.73 version of CyberStation) Time Interval Between Fieldbus Personnel Distributions — This is the amount of time (in milliseconds) that CyberStation waits before it sends another personnel distribution to controllers on the same fieldbus network. The default value is 30. Minimum value is 0. Maximum value is 15000 (15 seconds). This setting, which works in conjunction with setting 12, improves performance by preventing large numbers of records from flooding field bus controllers. It is also useful when there are many workstations performing access distribution. (That is, set it higher if there are many workstations.)
