Architecture

Overview

Through DeviceLink, Copia provides the ability to back up projects and files either on-demand or through scheduled operation. Using the Copia Web App, users of DeviceLink can configure their Projects and Devices for backup with a client-side app called the Copia Agent.

The example below demonstrates how an Organization might configure two Sites for DeviceLink:

As seen above, the Copia DeviceLink system consists of the following items:

• Site

  A Site is a logical grouping of user-defined Projects, Devices and Agents. A Site could be home to a factory, an area with a factory, a large region, etc.

• Project

  Projects are pointers to specific automation projects which are stored in the repositories within an Organization.

• Device

  Devices represent the actual hardware device(s) or location(s) that Projects are backed up from (i.e. PLC's, robot controller, etc). They often contain communication information, like an IP address.

• Job

  A Job is a scheduled operation that is used to perform a backup and comparison of your Project to the current instance in the Copia Server.

• Agent

  An Agent is a piece of software that will perform or request the actual backup of the Device directly. This is downloaded and installed on a PC in the customer network which has access to perform this operation.

What is the Copia Agent?

The Copia Agent is a small client-side application that enables DeviceLink to back up the code running on customer devices to Copia's Git-Based Source Control product.

The Agent works through a specific set of operations:

• The Agent will poll for Jobs from the Copia Web App via HTTPS at a polling interval of approximately 15 seconds.

• If any Jobs are found, the Agent will attempt to communicate to the Device to perform the backup.

• If the backup is successful, the program on the Device will be saved to disk in a temporary folder on the system. Prior to the next backup, the program will be deleted from local storage.

• If the backup is successful, the Agent will upload the results to the Web App via HTTPS.

Agent Network & System Requirements can be found in the System Requirements section of the Documentation.