Gateway and Clients

Hi All,
Hopefully this is a simple question. I have been through the user manual and this forum with no clear answer, hence the question here.
Recently the IT department migrated the Ignition Gateway and client onto a virtual server. All is up and running as it should be and other team members can “log in” remotely using the “Client.exe”. The question was raised by IT; does only the Gateway need to be running on the Server to enable data logging etc. or does the project need to be running on the server as well? I am of the understanding that the Project must be running to allow continuous data logging. Is this correct?
Thank you

If you are using transaction groups (SQL-Bridge), then no client needs be running.

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Thanks for the reply Jordan. You have answered my question.

Gateway events also run independent of any clients.

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Thanks to you also Phil for adding further information to my question.


Very interesting question. I would like to summarize these points from the user manual.

What is a Project?

Ignition has two main parts, the Gateway and your projects. The Gateway holds all the shared information like database connections, device connections, Tags, and more. Projects hold all the designed elements that do work. Your projects can hold both interactive elements (like controls, charts, reports, entry forms, and more) and persistent elements (like historical loggers, automated reports, etc).

In Ignition, a project is a unit of configuration that contains:

Windows and components: The HMI and SCADA controls to interact with Tags and databases

Transaction Groups: A bi-directional link between databases and PLCs

Templates: A collection of components that can be re-used and quickly updated

Reports: PDF reports for displaying and recording data

Scripts: Timer and event based scripts used throughout the system

General settings and properties: The settings that control access, resource connections, layout, timing, and more

What is NOT in a Project?

The designer allows you to create and modify several types of resources that are shared by ALL projects. Depending on the resource, this means that either they run independently of the projects, or they are available for use by any project. Here are a few:

Alarm Pipelines: Control alarm notification (runs independently)

Sequential Function Charts (SFC): Logic to step through a process (runs independently)

Shared Scripts: Blocks of scripting code (available to all projects)

Tags: Basic or UDT Tags provide realtime data (available to all projects)

Alarming: Alarms exist on Tags, and so are not in a project (available to all projects)

In addition to these resources, the Gateway connections and settings are available to all projects and are set up in the Gateway Webpage. These include resources such as database connections, OPC server and device connections, and more.

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Again, thank you for taking the time to explain what is and isn’t included in the “Project” and for the link to the user manual.
I now have a better understanding of things. thanks for the detailed response.