Platform connection communications
A platform connection is different than a station connection. When connected to a Niagara platform, Workbench communicates (as a client) to that host's platform daemon (also known as “niagarad” for Niagara daemon), a server process. Unlike a station connection, which uses the Fox protocol, a client platform connection requires workbench, meaning it is unavailable using a standard Web browser. The default ports for platform communications are ports 3011 and port 80.
Communication at a platform level may occur when a platform connection exists via the platform daemon. Maintaining a simple view of the platform director does not create any regular traffic, however, any views that have updates create update traffic proportionate to the number of updating fields that are on the view.
Figure 4-18 shows the platform view. Most of the functions available from this view create traffic and bandwidth usage directly related to the number and size of files involved. For file transfers (including modules) you can look at the file sizes before making the changes to assess how much traffic will be hitting the network and to decide if the target JACE (for example) has enough storage space to handle the transfer. Several platform functions cause insignificant amount of network traffic.
Figure 4-18 Platform view
Note: The provisioning service has the potential to put a greater amount of traffic on the network due to the ability to target multiple platforms.