How information is added to the Database

The System Database is populated by System Indexing. This is the process of crawling the stations (both local and remote) by querying for entities that match certain criteria (for example, networks, devices, points) and storing those indexed entities in the Supervisor station's System Database.

The scope of the system is a Supervisor station and all of the subordinate stations it is connected to via its NiagaraNetwork. To resolve subsequent queries to the System Database, you must enable NiagaraVirtuals for any participating NiagaraStation in the Supervisor's NiagaraNetwork.

 IMPORTANT: You must set up user permissions for Niagara virtuals manually in the Supervisor via roles and permissions. For details, see “Authorization management” in the Niagara Station Security Guide

Indexing methods

There are three ways to index, listed here in order of precedence. In each of these cases, the Supervisor station must have the SystemDbService and SystemIndexService installed and be running. Also, in all three cases there is a list of configurable index queries that are run to perform the index operation.

  • Individual push (export) to the Supervisor

    The export method is done individually, but may only be useful for certain network topologies. You must configure the Supervisor to accept the index export from the remote station.

  • Individual pull (import) from the remote station

    The import method allows you to specify a different set of index queries for one particular remote station. During this pull, the remote station is no longer able to respond to a global index query.

  • Global pull (import) from the station(s)

    Global pull is the most common index method, where it imports index entities from all reachable subordinate JACEs. The same list of queries is run on all stations in the NiagaraNetwork, which pulls data from the those stations.