I am looking for advice, experiences, etc regarding migration of our Mark VI from a XP OS to Windows 7.

1) Pitfalls
2) Communications with non GE devices - e.g. DCS systems. Any issues?
3) How long did the migration take? 2 days? 3 days? more?
4) Did you have GE perform the migration for you?
5) Did you do any factory acceptance testing?
6) Did you need to upgrade any peripheral equipment, network switches, etc?

From what I have been reading we would be required to move to ToolboxST. Does this apply for Mark VI or Mark VIe? If it does not apply to Mark VI units do we simply stay on the version of toolbox we are currently using?

I know I have asked a lot of questions. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

Dear GJRS,

I will be interested to hear how you proceed. We have machines running Win2K and WinXP. I am looking to upgrade at some point in the future. I know that to run in a newer operating system(XP) compared to Win2K that TCI needs a license dongle. It is my understanding that to upgrade to WIN7 you will need to upgrade to a newer version of Cimplicity (8.2 I think) and to ToolboxST.

I had GE quote us for an upgrade of the HMI's since I don't think they will sell just software for a DIY. The upgrade package I am looking at will require an upgrade of the flash disk in the UCVE, new firmware for all controller cards (MKVI) and a version of ToolboxST, not exactly like MKVIE. They ask all the questions of switches, fiber etc. We use PI and GSM so there are comm drivers to be concerned about. They are proud of the package as far as the price, but I don't really think our management wants to play around with another company saying it "should work".

Others I have spoken to have done this upgrade with GE and had a few issues(GSM DCS comm's) but were pleased with the result. Time was 2-3 days for a simple standard 4 HMI package. No system hardware changes other than UCVE flash disk. You have choices to use all your existing screens as a carryover, or GE will upgrade your screens with some "enhanced" features, for a fee.

I have heard of some users creating a "virtual machine" that runs Win2K on top of a base machine running Win7. I have not personally seen one in action to see how well it operates. I don't think this option will satisfy the NERC/CIP regulations if that is driving you to upgrade.

Let us know how you proceed, I'm sure there are many others out there like you.

 

MVP,

Well we have yet to pull the trigger on any upgrade to-date. That being said we have started looking into it again with a tentative plan to upgrade next year.

We are considering using VM technology to meet our requirements and avoid a full blown Mark VI/Cimplicity/Toolbox migration. We plan on conducting in house tests using VMware in the coming months to test stability, etc running Cimplicity and Toolbox in a virtualized environment. Have you ever considered this or know of anyone who has tested or implemented this? On the surface I don't see any glaring issues but I don't know what I don't know. We have some Technicians who are excellent with both the Mark VI and virtual machines - in fact we are migrating our DCS to a VM environment and have carried out extensive testing and have not encountered any drawbacks.

GE is recommending we upgrade, no surprise there, and have provided reasoning that the UCV cards can no longer be repaired - or at least it is becoming rather difficult. While this may be true I would tend to hedge our bets and stock up on a few to carry us through the next five to six years.

I am really hoping the VM testing proves out as this is a solution that would work indefinitely - the constraint will eventually be the availability of UCVE, in our case, cards.

If you have any experience with running Toolbox and or Cimplicity in a VM environment I would like to hear your feedback.

I will let you know how we make out here.

 

Dear GJRS,

I am running Toolbox and Cimplicity on a VM with no problems, basically created a VM using a backup of one of the stations from Aronis. As you and your co-workers know it is important to have a strong base machine running a fast processor and plenty of ram. 99% of the time the HMI is just an HMI viewer. The only time I have had any "Delay" in the VM is when I have multiple instances of toolbox or other applications open in the VM, and have my base machine loaded up as well. I have also recently been at a site using VM's for their toolbox and HMI. The only consideration I think at this site was implementing the network connections using a NAT connection to the VM to assign the NIC ports to keep with the GE redundancy. I must admit I like some of the new features of toolbox and Cimplicity 8.2,, but its hard to swallow the cost of the GE upgrade path.

As far as the UCVE cards, for my site I have 4 on shelf spares of the "E" release. We have two machines running TMR and two machines Simplex, so 8 cards total. Approximately 8 years running without a processor failure, and a vendor who will do repairs to these cards, makes this a non-issue in my view.

Let us know how you proceed. I think the VM atmosphere is an excellent solution, especially with staff that understand the process. The site I visited running the VM's had script that started the VM as soon as the base machine booted so most people never realize they are running in the VM. Good luck.

 

Hi,

We are having 5 TMR Mark VI with WIN2K, same issue of GE cost of upgrading to WIN7 with current version of Toolbox and Cimplicity! Can you please advice how to create a VM using a backup of one of the stations MHI from Aronis acronis please.

 

MIKEVI,

We have made it through our in-house testing phase. We tested both a hosted configuration, similar to what you are using, and a thin client configuration. Both configurations tested successfully.

With regards to the Mark VI UCVE cards - could you share the vendor information of who repairs your cards. We are currently searching for additional spare cards - we have 3 in stock.

We plan on going to a full VM environment next year.

Thanks

 

Glad to hear things went well with your testing. The vendor I use for card repair is Powergenics. I have also gotten pricing from GTC but have not purchased anything from them yet.

BTW I recently upgraded a machine from a standard hard drive to a SSD. What an incredible difference in boot time and access time for files, makes the operation of the VM that much better.