DeltaV Version 12 Fun Facts and Features – Part 2

One of our projects in Version 12 is our Licensing Revamp.  We’ve made counting IO licenses and managing them much easier.

The first thing we’ve done is gotten consistent in counting Device Signal Tags (DST’s) across all our supported bus technologies.  In previous versions of DeltaV, a single Foundation Fieldbus device counted as a single DST; it didn’t matter how many signals came in on that device, it only counted as one DST.

We’ve extended that methodology to our other supported busses – DeviceNet and Profibus.  Each field device on these bus segments will count as a single DST.  So if you’ve got a drive or motor from an MCC coming in via DeviceNet with multiple signals (start, stop, running, current, etc), it'll only count as a single DST.

Probably the licensing change I’m most excited about is how we’re handling serial IO.  In the past, folks would bring multiple registers from a serial dataset into one module in DeltaV (we called them “landing modules”).  In the landing modules, we’d convert the register IO references into parameters that then got picked up by other modules in the system.  This allowed us to keep the DST count down when dealing with large amounts of serial data.

In Version 12, we’ve eliminated the need to use landing modules by just counting a single DST per serial dataset.  So whether you’re bringing in 50 or 100 integer registers into a single dataset, it will only count as one DST, no matter how many different modules reference the registers from the dataset.

Eliminating the landing modules eliminates a lot of unneeded complexity – your control modules reference serial IO just like they would reference other IO types.  Engineering and troubleshooting are simplified and controller loading is reduced by not having all those landing modules.

And to better help keep track of licensing, we’ve created an I/O License Demand utility.

You’ll be able to see how all your I/O effect your license usage before you ever have to download a controller.  And it won’t matter what type of licensing dongle you have attached to your system, the I/O License Demand utility will still give you the right information.