Echelon i.LON SmartServer 2.0 - Manual (Page 43)

i.LON SmartServer 2.0 Programmer’s Reference 4-2
Two of the most important properties in the Data Server for any data point are the
and properties. The property represents the current status of the
data point. The property represents the current value of the data point. The Data Server
updates these properties in real time, and they are very useful to many SmartServer applications.
For example, you could set up an Alarm Generator that will update the of a data
point to an alarm condition each time the of that data point reaches a certain level. You
could then set up an Alarm Notifier that will send out an alarm notification each time the
of the data point is updated to that condition. These applications are described in
more detail later in this document.
A data point list is generated for each data point when it is created and added to the Data Server. Once
you have created the data points for your SmartServer and added them to the Data Server, you can
reference these data points when using SmartServer applications such as the Analog Function Block,
Scheduler, Calendar, Type Translator, Alarm Generator, and Alarm Notifier. When any of these
applications reference a data point, that application is added to the data point list for the data point, and
the application will be notified each time the data point is updated. In this fashion, each application
has current access to all the network information pertaining to the data points it is using.
This chapter describes how to create data points and add them to the Data Server. Echelon
recommends that you restrict all networks to a maximum of 1,000 data points.
4.1 Creating and Modifying the Data Point XML Files
The SmartServer stores the data points on the Data Server in Dp.XML files under the parent
network/channel/device directory of the data points. Consider the following examples: