Applies To:
  • CitectSCADA 1.00 1.01 1.10 1.11 1.20 2.00 2.01 3.00
Summary:
I have a customer who want alarm printer redundancy via network printer. It this possible to setup with the alarm server. 

Solution:
If you setup a network alarm printer Citect will send the alarms across the network to the printer, however you will get the problem where each alarm will be printed on a new page. This problem is described in article Q1113.

A better solution is to provide two low cost printers, a dot matrix or bubble jet are quite suitable. One printer is then attached to each alarm server. This way you will get full redundancy without the problems caused by a network alarm printer. You can use your network printer for reports and screen prints.

An even better solution is not to print the alarms at all. Citect will allow you send all your alarms to a database or SQL server. From this database you can then generate reports or do high level queries. This not only saves paper but also makes useful historical storage as files are much easier to store than paper records and much easer to find information in.

Logging alarms to a printer is an outdated mode of storing this information and is a hangover from system printers of 10 years ago.

 
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