Can you explain the concept of OFFLINE and ONLINE Status?
The best way to understand Off Line and On Line status at the web site for any given RTU, is to recognize that they are made necessary by two very important beneficial features of AlarmAgent:
1. The web site is designed to generate Watchdog alarm notifications if a scheduled periodic report is not received as expected. However, this very important reliability feature turns into an undesirable notification nuisance if the RTU becomes unable to communicate with the web site merely because it has been turned off, etc.
2. AlarmAgent allows RTU configuration changes to be made directly from the web site. However, such configuration changes for the RTU, entered at the web site, must necessarily be transmitted to the RTU before they can become effective. This in turn means that if the web site is currently unable to communicate such configuration changes to the RTU because the RTU is turned off or for any other reason, the intended configuration changes will not actually take effect. This in turn necessitates that during any time in which communications between the web site and the RTU appear to the web site to be currently not possible, the web site will not permit such RTU configuration changes to be entered.
Off Line and On Line status at the web site are designed to deal with these two necessary corollaries of the above named important beneficial features of AlarmAgent (i.e., Watchdog alarms and the ability to configure RTUs from the web site). Bearing in mind that Off Line or On Line status of the RTU actually exists only at the web site, and not at the RTU.
Off Line status for any given RTU at the web site has the following two necessary aspects:
- The web site will not generate Watchdog alarms when scheduled periodic reports are not received from that RTU as otherwise expected.
- The web site will not allow any configuration changes for that RTU to be entered at the web site.
Finally, please note that in general you will only need to deal with Off Line/Online status of RTUs at the web site when the RTU has been turned off, or when other unusual circumstances prevent communication between the web site and the RTU.