Maintenance

This chapter explains maintenance issues such as receiving data from AEMO, Monitoring your DBMS, and performing software upgrades.

File data feed

To receive data from AEMO, do both of the following:

  • Subscribe to your required files in the Data Subscription web application. AEMO recommends subscribing to all available files and selectively loading them into your DBMS as required. This way the file is created and available if required in the future (for approximately six months). Unsubscribing from files makes them unavailable in the future.
  • Ensure your chosen files are set to be loaded by pdrLoader into your DBMS using the Data Interchange menu option in Last modified: 16 October 2024 .

A file feed can be turned off by either:

  • Unsubscribing from the file using the Data Subscription web application. If you unsubscribe from a file, it is no longer delivered to your folder on the participant file server. The file is not produced, so it is not possible to retrieve this data at a later date, if business needs change.
  • Setting the pdrLoader file load to inactive in your DBMS, using Last modified: 16 October 2024 or direct SQL statements. If you set the pdrLoader file load to inactive, the file is still generated and transferred but its content is not loaded to your DBMS. AEMO still maintains a copy of that file in its online archive for up to 6 months, so the file can be re-requested for transfer at a later date.

Monitoring

Database state

To tell if the database is up-to-date, do any one or more of the following:

  • Inspect the PDR_MANIFEST_LOG table directly. For detailed table descriptions, see "Database Tables" in the Participant Data Replication Loader User Guide.
  • Query the PDR_REPORT_AUDIT_SUMMARY table for a regularly received report (such as DISPATCHIS). For more details about the PDR tables, see the Participant Data Replication Loader User Guide.
  • Query the Electricity Data Model tables you expect to have current data (based upon your current subscriptions).
  • Use the pdrMonitor software DI dashboard to verify current system status.

Operational checks

AEMO recommends that participants monitor their Data Interchange environment to ensure smooth operation. Key monitoring points include:

  • Build up of files in your participant Data Interchange folders.
  • Space monitoring at the database and file system levels.
  • Log file inspection of the pdrBatcher and pdrLoader processes.
  • Timeliness of specific tables in your DBMS.
  • Running queries against the PDR tables.

For assistance with any issues, see the Guide to Troubleshooting Data Interchange.

Tests for successful upgrade

To check a configuration update is applied, identify a new table that is supposed to be added for the new version of the Electricity Data Model and run a query like:

select count(1) from PDR_REPORT_RECORDS where DESTINATION_TABLE='<NameOfNewTable>';

If the query returns 0 rows, then the Electricity Data Model pdrLoader configuration has not run successfully.

To check a report is activated to load to the database, either:

  • Check the desired report in the pdrMonitor. You can activate reports on this screen too.
  • Check the IS_ACTIVE status in table PDR_REPORT_TYPE_CONFIG for the desired report, using SQL. You can activate a report by setting the status, using SQL, too.