Just flagging an idea with Campbell:
We have a very large network of loggers all performing an IP callback to our Loggernet Server. Most sites report in every 60 minutes. The remote sites have CR800 loggers with 3G Cellular modems. We use code and the loggers IP Stack to connect to the internet and then connect with our loggernet server. Once loggernet has finished performing the callback t download data the remote sites then disconnect with the server and internet. I have been thinking for a long time wouldn't it be fantastic to be able to make changes to sites settings/variables etc anytime and have them queued up waitng to be applied on next connection. We use Unidata Neon loggers and their Neon Server is able to perform this. It is a very powerful tool and could mean that eventually networks of sites could truly be managed from the server. Changes to groups of sites may also be possible. I understand that this is a huge and complex suggestion but we already have the table def's on the server so it would be more about the ability to change a variable and then have it queued waiting for then next callback connection.
Any suggestions welcome!!
Thank you for the feedback. We have been considering some additions to LoggerNet Admin that would aid in the management of larger networks along the same lines as you suggest (though I had not considered a call-back scenario).
I appreciate the input. Any other thoughts you or others may have about tools that would be useful for the management of larger networks is welcomed. (I can't guarantee that we'll get them implemented, but we will certainly give them careful consideration!).
Thank you, Dana W.
This can already be accomplished using a combination of CoraScript and tasks. You can define a task associated with the station(s) from which you are expecting call-back. The trigger would be "On Call-Back" and the command line would be something like the following:
--input-file="c:\campbellsci\loggernet\station-pending.txt"
The contents of this file would consist of a collection of CoraScript commands such as "connect" and "set-value". These commands are separated with semi-colons. You would create a second task that executes after the call-back task is complete that would delete the file referenced above.
If corascript cannot find the file or it is empty, then no commands will be executed and the interpreter will terminate.
This makes it possible to add pending operations while you are waiting for the datalogger to call in.