Upgrade .NET version support for AF SDK

It is very disappointing that there will be no .NET Core support in the release of the new AF SDK. We use microservices in a Linux environment, the development of such services would be extremly simplified by a platform-independent version of the AF SDK.

The new AVEVA products like the PI DA Server 2023 are already supporting the platform-independent authentication via OpenID Connect and a AF SDK version for .NET Core is the next necessary step for a better support of the development of platform-independent services and applications around the PI System. The support for .NET Core should be implemented in the AF SDK as soon as possible.

One of the challenges is that: cloud application components like Azure function or AWS Lambda, or any containerized app in cloud environment (whether it is C# or Python), cannot use PI AF SDK to access PI Data.

The only way is to implement a HTTP client and query data through PI Web API.

We need to be able to use the SDK in linux (likely Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu) containers and VMs. While it is wonderful that a new SDK is being released that will support .NET 8, it is disappointing to read that it will not initially support linux. I assume we're looking at a 2025 date for linux support?

As mentioned in other posts, CoreWCF might be able to easily allow you to switch from .NET to .NET Core so you can add cross-platform support. https://github.com/CoreWCF/CoreWCF

Source: https://docs.aveva.com/bundle/af-sdk-getting-started/page/1011017.html

"Therefore, you must install PI System Explorer on any computer on which an AF SDK application is run."

Can anyone confirm whether the above dependency on PI System Explorer will remain once the SDK provides a .NET 8+ target?

We are in the process of upgrading our application components to .NET 6 and upwards to improve their performance and make them more platform independent, however one of our core components uses this PI AF SDK and so we've hit a stumbling block until this SDK is upgraded

There is a need for automated configuration - the intent is to deploy a container that has knowledge of a data source and the business rules needed for that data to be stored in a PI repository. This has no remote configuration only cloud base configuration so the container must have the ability to configure the PI system to meet the business needs. This should include tag creation - event persistence - AF configuration. The initial use case is to get the data in a central data store [opinion]- PI being the most capable.

We need PI AF SDK on IOT Edge for Linux on Windows using .NET core 8.0
The use case involves subscribing to streaming data from the PI Data Archive and forwarding to Azure IoT Hub / Azure Data Hub

Our use-case for using AF SDK:

• we are on .NET 7 / 8

• our code is executed in a Linux container

• we support concurrent sessions of multiple users

The architecture would be:

• some module makes a call to the Linux container

• business logic (implemented in .NET 7 / 8) is executed, which results in calls to AF SDK (with the proper user session / user credentials)

• AF SDK connects to Pi running in a dedicated VM

• the caller receives the data they asked for / have the data altered the expected way

My team is looking forward to using the PI AF SDK with .NET 8 support to build a modern full stack web application to replace a legacy excel based migration tool to read/write to Pi AF. Additionally, we need the SDK to be compatible with Entity Framework Core 8.0, Angular 16, Node 20. Also, internally Chevron has marked .NET Framework 4.8.1 as deprecated and required us to upgrade .NET 6.0 or newer so this is a high priority item for us to maintain cyber compliance.

Please expose archive & network statistic info through the SDK. Consuming this data in an automated way through the new SDK will be much easier than through other processes.

These are great news!

We are waitng for that for a long time, modernize our front ends working with AF SDK is a critical aspect for the longevity of the PI System in our application against several attempt to replace it with other platforms.

Can there be an update on the estimated delivery of this upgrade?

Yay!! Finally, this is going to happen. I am waiting for .Net Core support for a long time. :)

AF SDK with .Net Core support will help us to migrate all of our custom build applications to migrate to modern technology and allow us to add longer life cycle to our applications. This will help us to eliminate older hardware and flexibility to support newer OS upgrades.

AF SDK on .Net core (with Modern Authentication) would allow to write truly cloud Native AF SDK App.

This is great news!!

For a feature addition, I would love to be able to search for a list of attributes by name. If I want to find attributes 'alpha', 'beta', 'gamma', 'delta', and 'epsilon' for an element and then get interpolated values over a date range, I have to run 5 FindElementAttribute searches and then call [i].Data.InterpolatedValues for each. I would prefer to run one search, then GetInterpolated for all items in the search results.

Thank you for keeping AF SDK up to date.

This makes me so happy!!!!

Glad to hear development started on this long awaited item. Please provide a tentative timeline as .NET 8 itself will be released early Nov.

We need this future to make our custom applications build on top of PI SDK/AF SDK to make platform independent and keep our applications up todate with current Microsoft technologies.

I'm responsible for modernizing the entire TechStack in our department. Many projects has been based on .Net 6.0 for quite some time and working with the PI AF SDK is currently unnecessarily time-consuming, since project-specific services have to be created in order to somehow access the data.

Any technical solution which provides .NET 6.0+ and .NET-Core compatibility would be nice and helpfull.