Siemens PCS 7 Storage Plus V1.1 Installation and Configuration

Overview of Storage Plus V1.1 in PCS 7

Storage Plus V1.1 is the long-term archive option supplied on the SIMATIC PCS 7 V6.1 SP1 DVD. It extends the standard WinCC short-term circular archive by exporting completed segments into a separate, file-based archive that is accessible from any OS client, OS server, or dedicated archive node on the plant bus. Once configured, Storage Plus lets the operator open historical trend curves, alarm logs, and message archives that are days, weeks, or months old—well beyond the 24-to-72 hour window of a typical WinCC online archive.

The package is delivered as a discrete setup component inside the PCS 7 frame installer. The frame-setup enforces dependency rules: it verifies the operating system, checks the installed SQL Server and Message Queuing components, and only then activates the Storage package. Mis-selecting OS-Server, OS-Client, or SIMATIC Batch during a custom install is the single most common reason Storage Plus does not register its services on the target machine.

This guide consolidates the field-tested installation rules, the WinCC long-term archive configuration steps, the IIS / SQL 2000 SP3 / MSMQ dependencies, and the most frequent remote-server browsing failures, with a verification checklist suitable for an S7-400 / AS-400 plant handover.

System Prerequisites and Compatibility Matrix

Storage Plus V1.1 was designed for the PCS 7 V6.1 era and carries specific platform constraints. Confirm every line item below before launching the setup; rolling forward a single dependency version can break the archive writer or the web front end.

Installation Topology: Standalone, OS-Combined, or Dedicated

Siemens ships three viable installation patterns for Storage Plus V1.1. The choice is dictated by plant size, network segmentation, and the operator station count.

The frame-setup rule from the release notes is unambiguous: install only the Storage component. Do not tick the OS-Server or OS-Client check boxes on the same machine, even though the setup wizard will allow it. The component coupling inside the PCS 7 setup framework assumes one role per machine, and selecting both will leave the Storage Plus service registered in a partial state that will not start cleanly after a reboot.

Step-by-Step Installation Procedure

1. Verify the operating system image. Confirm the PC carries the OEM SIMATIC Windows image (look for the SIMATIC IPC sticker and the pre-installed SIMATIC Diagnostic Tool). If the image is retail Microsoft, re-image the machine with the SIMATIC recovery media before proceeding.
2. Install MSMQ. Open Control Panel → Add or Remove Programs → Add/Remove Windows Components and tick Message Queuing. Accept the default sub-options. A reboot is required.
3. Install SQL Server 2000 SP3. Run the SQL 2000 installer, choose Server and Client Tools, Mixed Mode authentication, and set the sa password to match the value documented in the PCS 7 password sheet. Apply Service Pack 3 immediately after the base install completes.
4. Resolve the .NET version. Read the Readme.txt on the PCS 7 V6.1 SP1 DVD in the Storage Plus chapter. The conservative interpretation is to install .NET Framework 1.1 and uninstall any .NET 2.0 runtime already on the machine, because the Storage Plus ASP pages and the archive writer binary have been observed to bind against CLR 1.1. If the local readme explicitly states that .NET 2.0 is permitted, follow the readme verbatim.
5. Enable IIS. Add Internet Information Services via Windows Components. Confirm that the ASP sub-component is enabled (this is not on by default on Windows Server 2003).
6. Launch the PCS 7 frame-setup. Insert the PCS 7 V6.1 SP1 DVD and start Setup.exe from the root. The frame installer reads Setup.ini and presents the package tree.
7. Select Storage only. In the component tree, expand WinCC Options and tick Storage. Do not tick OS-Server, OS-Client, SIMATIC Batch, or any of the AS-400 engineering components on this machine.
8. Assign the SQL database owner. The installer prompts for a SQL login. Use sa with the password from step 3. Storage Plus will create its own database (StoragePlus by default) during this step.
9. Confirm IIS virtual directory creation. The setup creates an IIS virtual directory named StoragePlus pointing at <InstallDir>\StoragePlus\Web. Verify the directory exists and that the IUSR_<Machine> account has read/execute permission.
10. Reboot and verify services. After the final reboot, open Services and confirm that SIMATIC Storage Plus Archive Service and SIMATIC Storage Plus Web Service are set to Automatic and are Started. The MSMQ service must also be running.

WinCC Long-Term Archive Configuration

Storage Plus only archives what WinCC hands it. The configuration work happens in the WinCC Explorer on the OS Server that owns the project.

1. In the WinCC Explorer, right-click Tag Logging and open Archive Configuration.
2. On the Storage tab, enable Activate storage.
3. Set the archive path. The default is ..\storage\archive relative to the project directory. Use an absolute path on a dedicated partition with a minimum of 50 GB free for trend data and message logs combined.
4. Configure the segment size. For a process plant with roughly 2,000 analog tags and 500 messages, a segment size of 5 MB per archive keeps the Storage Plus importer responsive without thrashing MSMQ.
5. Define the segment close policy. Choose Daily for shift-based reporting, or Size for high-frequency data. Storage Plus only processes closed segments, so do not select Never.
6. Press OK and restart the WinCC runtime. Verify that the first closed segment lands in <Project>\storage\archive within one close interval (e.g., the next 24-hour boundary).

To confirm that WinCC is exporting correctly, browse the archive folder on the OS Server. The presence of files with the extension .dtb (data backup) and matching .idx files indicates the export is working. Empty folders or only .tmp files mean the long-term archive is not yet closed and Storage Plus has nothing to import.

Remote Server Connection and Tag Browsing

Storage Plus is intended to be the central long-term repository for multiple OS Servers on the plant bus. Once the archive node is installed, the operator must be able to browse the tag list of every registered OS Server from a single web page.

1. On the OS Server that owns the project, open the WinCC project and start WinCC runtime at least once with the long-term archive active. This causes WinCC to register the server in the Storage Plus database.
2. On the Storage Plus archive node, open the Storage Plus configuration tool (Start → SIMATIC → Storage Plus → Configuration). The Servers view should list every WinCC server that has exported at least one segment.
3. If a server is missing, check that the MSMQ queue .\Private$\StoragePlus_In exists on the OS Server and that the Storage Plus archive service account has Peek and Send rights.
4. From a remote OS Client, open Internet Explorer and navigate to http://<StoragePlusServer>/StoragePlus. The browser front end should display the registered servers, the available tags, and the time-range picker.
5. To browse a specific tag, expand the server, then the archive group, then the tag. Right-click and select Display Trend to verify the historical view.

IIS, MSMQ, and SQL 2000 Service Dependencies

Storage Plus V1.1 ties three Windows subsystems together. A failure in any one of them will surface as a generic "Storage Plus will not start" symptom in the WinCC alarm log.

Set the recovery options of the two Storage Plus services to Restart the Service on first, second, and subsequent failures. The archive service occasionally crashes when an OS Server pushes a malformed segment; auto-recovery prevents data loss.

Common Installation Issues and Resolution Matrix

Field Commissioning Checklist and Verification

Run through the following list before signing off the long-term archive on a customer site.

1. Confirm the operating system image is the SIMATIC OEM image; capture the Windows install date and the SIMATIC product key sticker value in the commissioning report.
2. Document the SQL 2000 SP3 instance name, the sa password (sealed envelope), and the SQL agent service account.
3. Verify that .NET 1.1 is present and that .NET 2.0 is absent. Save a screenshot of Add or Remove Programs.
4. Open the Storage Plus web front end from the local machine. The home page should load in under two seconds.
5. From a remote OS Client on the plant bus, navigate to http://<StoragePlusServer>/StoragePlus. The home page must load without authentication prompt (Integrated Windows Authentication).
6. Open a tag trend on a date at least seven days in the past. The trend must render within three seconds.
7. Force a WinCC segment close on the source OS Server, wait two minutes, then refresh the Storage Plus server list. The new segment timestamp must appear.
8. Export a three-month trend to a CSV file from the web front end. Open the CSV in Excel and confirm continuous data with no missing timestamps.
9. Stop and restart the SIMATIC Storage Plus Archive service. Verify that the service comes back to Running within ten seconds and that in-flight MSMQ messages drain.
10. Save the Storage Plus configuration file (StoragePlus.xml) and the WinCC archive configuration to the project backup on the engineering server.

Performance and Sizing Notes

For a midsize PCS 7 plant with three OS Servers, two OS Clients, and a combined 4,000 logging tags plus 1,500 messages per day, plan the Storage Plus node as follows:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or equivalent. Storage Plus is single-threaded for the importer, so clock speed matters more than core count.
• RAM: 2 GB minimum, 4 GB recommended. The SQL 2000 buffer pool will consume roughly 1.2 GB under steady load.
• Disk: 250 GB RAID-1 for the OS and SQL data, 500 GB RAID-5 on a separate physical volume for the archive folder. Isolate the archive volume to keep the SQL transaction log on a low-latency disk.
• Network: 100 Mbit/s to the plant bus. The MSMQ payloads are small (typically 2 to 10 MB per closed segment) so bandwidth is not the bottleneck; latency is.
• Backup: Schedule a daily NTBackup of the archive folder to tape or NAS. Storage Plus does not manage its own backup.

Migration and Lifecycle Notes

Storage Plus V1.1 is the final release line for the PCS 7 V6.x platform. The successor product, SIMATIC Information Server, replaces Storage Plus from PCS 7 V7.0 SP1 onward and is built on SQL Server 2005/2008 and a .NET 2.0 web service. Do not attempt a side-by-side install of Storage Plus V1.1 and Information Server on the same machine—the two products share the same SQL database name and will corrupt each other's schema. A clean migration to Information Server requires archiving the Storage Plus database, uninstalling Storage Plus, and then importing the historical data through the Information Server migration tool.

For plants that must remain on V1.1 for compliance reasons, lock the machine image with a write filter or a documented change-control procedure; the .NET 1.1 dependency is no longer patched by Microsoft, and a Windows Update cycle that pushes .NET 2.0 will break the archive importer silently.

Related Documentation

Cross-reference the following official Siemens documents when commissioning Storage Plus V1.1:

• SIMATIC PCS 7 V6.1 SP1 Manual Collection — contains the WinCC V6.0 SP4 documentation set used by Storage Plus.
• Siemens Industry Online Support — Process Automation — entry point for the latest Storage Plus application notes and readme updates.
• Readme.txt inside the Storage Plus chapter of the PCS 7 V6.1 SP1 installation DVD — the authoritative document on .NET version, IIS sub-components, and MSMQ queue syntax for V1.1.