We are working on setting up HMIs (10 pack) for our local control panels; dual servers are setup with application, screens, and tags (designated with areas). We have looked at the tag area filtering literature, but are apparently lacking something on server/HMI architecture as we do not have all the options in "Workstation" and "Section" options in properties.

Is there a best practice for setting up 2 server/multi-HMI architecture?

Thanks. Jeremy

Tag Area Filtering and Alarm Area filtering are pretty easy to setup, but only serve the purpose of lowering licensing requirements on the local nodes and simplifying the interface there. You do have to edit files and add custom application properties to do this, though.

The biggest advantage IMO is building distributed I/O polling and a distributed redundant historian that automatically backfills, which is unheard of in this industry. This is also done through carefully separating tags, drivers, historian stores and then built using advanced server lists.

You can read about what we did here:
https://www.vtscada.com/sustainable-scada-system

Yes, that's what we are trying to do. Just unsure on how/if any Advanced server configuration is needed to do this, because we will end up with 9 local nodes and 2 servers. But in setting up the first local node through tag area filtering, we find there is something missing, as we can't get our custom property to say: "AreaA, Areas, 1, StationA" as in the photo below.

All of the elements in the first columns tables are just text strings. You do not have to obey the drop down lists in the Insert dialog.

If StationA/StationB are missing from the drop down list, they are just probably not in the workstation list yet.

I would do all the property configuration first (for licensing limitations on remote nodes), then install VTS on the nodes, pull the workstation from the server, then setup alarm area filtering, then customize the server list as required.