Background: Customer machines create files containing data, configuration, log data, etc. These files may contain critical information for service technicians about the asset and its data. How can you make sure you get this important information to the Cloud as soon as it’s available? Use File Watcher, a standard tool available with Firewall-Friendly Agents. You can configure File Watcher to monitor a directory or file specification and automatically upload the file(s) to the Axeda Cloud. By monitoring selected directories and files on the device, the File Watcher determines which files have changed or appeared and then upload those files to the Axeda Cloud Server. Sometimes the size of the file being written or copied into the file watch target is large enough that it takes time to complete. Without taking the right precautions, the file upload may try to start before the file creation process is completed. Recommendations: To ensure that large files don’t cause problems, we recommend using a “move” or “rename” operation instead of a file copy operation to place your file into a watched directory. Unlike a “copy” operation, using autonomous operations like move or rename will ensure that the Agent doesn’t detect a file is in the midst of growing and prematurely begin to upload that operation. In situations when it isn’t possible to use the autonomous “move” or “rename” operations, you can implement a delay. Setting a delay in the File Watcher configuration will prevent the Agent from sending files to the Axeda CloudServer before those files have transferred completely to the watched file directory. Finally, use file compression wisely. You need to balance the benefits from compressing files before sending with the potential adverse impact that compression will have on the Agent. Compressing very large files BEFORE sending to the Platform will affect the Agent; however, compressing smaller files can be beneficial. If the Agent’s computer is of lower power, the CPU may have to work overtime to compress huge files or to send huge uncompressed files. As a general rule, compressing files before sending is recommended. However, depending on your Agent and network setup, it may prove more beneficial to stream uncompressed files rather than compress first and then send. Need more information? For information about configuring and using file watchers, see the Axeda® Builder User’s Guide (PDF) or the online help in Axeda Builder.
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