PCs are at the heart of industrial plants. Thousands of them are in use in large production facilities. Some are more critical to reliable production than others. Following appropriate risk assessments, it is therefore necessary to back up the data at regular intervals or to create images of the respective computers. With many PCs, the management and administration of these backups alone is extremely complex and time-consuming. Automated solutions are required that make it easier to create jobs for image creation, but also provide a constant overview of the current data backup status during use.

What has long been standard in the office world took time to become fully established in automation technology: consistent data backup. Auvesy discovered this area for itself years ago and developed data management solutions that support users in the automation industry in creating automatic backups and version management in order to document software versions of control programs cleanly. The tools allow changes to be tracked down and clearly traced. Overall, this leads to higher production quality and less downtime, as well as complete traceability of manufacturing processes.

Automated image creation as part of an overall solution
Developments in the industry, such as the demand for complete solutions from a single source, have also left their mark on the Landau-based software company. Dr. Tim Weckerle, CEO of Auvesy, explains: "In the past, we have focused on our version management system Versiondog and the individual tools that we offer users with it. In the future, we will shift the focus away from tools and towards complete solutions. We want to become even stronger data management specialists for automation that deliberately focus on the benefits for their users. To this end, we will integrate many more services directly in future. This will already be noticeable in version 7.0. Image creation with our own Image Service or Acronis are very good examples of this."

Theoretically, automatic image creation has already been supported for two years, but for users it was accompanied by some bureaucratic procurement effort. As of version 7.0, Drive Snapshot technology is fully integrated into Versiondog through the Image Service. Alternatively, Acronis is also supported.

Auvesy Image Service or Acronis?
At first glance, it may seem confusing that the software supports two different interfaces for automated image creation. From the user's point of view, however, it is only a logical step. Drive Snapshot is a widely used recovery software. It creates images at the touch of a button and thus backs up the installed operating system including all programs and settings. Thanks to the Auvesy Image Service, the technology is fully integrated into Versiondog. An additional installation on the clients is therefore not necessary.

Image creation with the AuvesyImage Service or Acronis in versiondog. © Auvesy

In contrast to Acronis, the solution is an extremely lean tool. This is particularly advantageous because many industrial applications use old PCs on which storage space is anything but plentiful. Although Drive Snapshot was originally developed for private use, it offers almost all the necessary functions for industrial applications. Only the management of multiple images is not provided, as this is hardly relevant in the private sector. Therefore, in combination with Versiondog and the Image Service, which takes over exactly this management, a perfect overall solution is created.

Acronis, the data backup and recovery solution for physical and virtual servers, is already used as a standard tool for image creation in many large companies throughout the company. One of the reasons for this is that the solution is certified for audit procedures. It therefore makes sense to create an interface to Versiondog in order to provide these users with further benefits of the data management solution. The disadvantage of using the Acronis solution is that users must have just under one gigabyte of storage space available on the PC to be backed up and must purchase and install the software license themselves.

Image creation, but automated please
The configuration of an image job, whether with the Image Service or Acronis, can be done in Versiondog in the respective input mask and also tested immediately. However, if you have to create these jobs manually for all PCs in a production plant, this is a time-consuming, mindless and therefore error-prone activity. If an employee only needs three minutes for one job, he is busy for a good three days with 500 jobs. An automated solution is therefore essential, especially for large systems. To this end, Auvesy has developed the automatic component and job creation function, with which the list of IP addresses of the clients to be backed up and other parameters can be easily imported on the basis of a CSV file.

For example, you can first optimize the image creation for one PC and then copy these parameters for all other computers. This can be done easily in the CSV list, entered clearly or copied with little effort. An average processing time of ten minutes per 100 jobs thus becomes realistic and the original time for creating 500 jobs is reduced from three man-days to just under an hour.

Image job is triggered via versiondog, the image is saved at the specified location and the job result is reported back to versiondog as a job log. © Auvesy

From image creation to preventive maintenance
Once the image jobs have been created, automated monitoring during operation is essential. To ensure that images are really available if the worst comes to the worst, questions such as Are all backups running as planned? Where are there difficulties, such as authorization problems? Where is the storage space for the images running out? Or is a hard disk defective? Are all clients accessible? This allows the user to intervene at an early stage and ensure that all images have been created.

Lang adds: "The Image Service not only creates images. It also provides a lot of intelligent data about the condition of the respective PC. For example, it determines the hard disk capacity and detects defective sectors. If this information is also systematically analyzed, it can be put to excellent use for preventive maintenance. We can then issue the corresponding warnings to the user via Versiondog. After all, there's nothing worse than having to access an image and only then realizing that the hard drive on which the image should be automatically stored is defective."

So there are definitely image solutions that are suitable for the automation industry. Auvesy can now work together with providers of these image systems to tailor complete solutions for the respective application. Weckerle summarizes: "At the end of the day, image creation is a topic that you don't want to deal with forever. It simply has to work. Plug-and-play solutions are in demand. That's why we want to integrate other services from other providers into Versiondog in the future, so that we can offer users comprehensive solutions for their data management." as