Can I have Different Version for DMC and PCWS Server?

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Products: Aspen DMC3, Aspen Production Control Web Server 
Last Updated: 05-Jan-2022
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Article ID: 000099419
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Problem Statement
This article described the compatibility between Online Server and PCWS on Different Version.

Solution
We always recommend as best practice is to have all APC servers running on the same version. However, there could be some scenarios in which you could have different versions of the software.

In those cases, where different version needs to coexist there is a couple of things to consider:

1.- Forward compatibility is not supported by APC software. This basically means that you cannot use recent file versions into old software versions for example: trying to open a V12.1 DMC3 project using V11 DMC3 Builder.

This does not only apply to Desktop applications as DMC3 Builder or DMCplus Model, but also to Server applications. In the specific case of PCWS, if PCWS version is equal or greater than the Controllers version, PCWS is going to be able to display them. For example, if PCWS is V12.1 and all your APC applications (IQ, DMC3, DMCplus etc) are V10, PCWS will be able to show them. If not, PCWS will not be able to display the applications (for example PCWS V10 and APC applications V11)

2.- Following the logic of the previous point, the order of the upgrade will matter for an APC system. Let’s take the example of an upgrade that will be performed in phases. In this case, as the software will not be upgraded all at the same time you have to think about a strategy that could cover the needs as the upgrade goes through. For example, I can consider upgrading the first PCWS and the AspenWatch server considering that they will support the use of the previous version of the APC applications. then on a secondary phase, I can upgrade the DMC server as I know there won’t be any inconvenience related to the supported version.

If I go first for the DMC server and try to deploy them before upgrading PCWS, then PCWS will not be able to display the DMC applications.

Keywords
DMC3, PCWS, Compatibility