Confusion Over NI Web Server Hosting

[Veets]

Hello!  I'm currently attempting to adapt a project to use a NI Web Server instead of Systemlink Cloud.  SLC was extremely useful for the purposes of the project because it was hosted online and accessible from anywhere without any need for a computer to run and host a server.  Is there a way to achieve the same result with the NI Web Server?  By this I mean, is there a way to host Tags and WebVIs on the NI Web Server without having my own computer run and uphold the server itself, perhaps by connecting to a server that's already hosted online by NI?  Or alternatively, is there other NI software that can achieve this goal?  I need a replacement for this function of Systemlink Cloud!

Thank you for any help you can provide!

[JoshuaP]

The easiest way to replicate what SLC provided is to get an AWS or Azure account, set up a Windows virtual machine, and install the NI Web Server via the SystemLink Server installer.

[Ozfarmboy]

We have just done this here at our organisation.

We created an Azure Windows Server 2019 VM. Doesn't strictly have to be Windows Server (ie. Could just be Windows 10 or 11), but Windows Server is better suited to websites.  (If you are hosting privately, then you could just follow the installation instruction below on a dedicated Windows PC on your network that will act as the server.  And you can't use Linux for this.)

We then had our IT dept setup appropriate connections/settings to allow public access to the web server. ie. 

Configured the inbound security settings to allow for inbound HTTPS traffic and probably remote desktop.  And others...

We then installed NI Systemlink Server (but did not activate it as we're not strictly using Systemlink Server, we're using NI Web Server but with Systemlink tags/files/messages): 

Then we followed the procedures documented here to get our web app uploaded to Systemlink and access it:

Hosting a WebVI Securely on Your Own Network Using NI Web Server - NI Community

You'll want IT help to create a security certificate.

Network security guidance for Systemlink: Network Security - SystemLink Operations Handbook

Please note:

You will now have to login to Systemlink in order to access your web vi (whereas before you could create a direct link to your web vi).

[Veets]

This will really help a lot, thank you so much for the in-depth description! 

[Veets]

Thank you for your help, I'll try that out!

I do hope that National Instruments will eventually provide another service similar to SLC someday, it was an incredibly useful service and it's a shame to see it go!  I wish they provided more direct alternatives, but perhaps it's not feasible for them at the moment.

[jesushidalgo]

Thank you very much for your detailed review of how to work with Systemlink.

It is a pity that NI shoots down Systemlinkcloud. This will be the near future communication because a lot of IoT solutions devices are prepared to interact with such clouds and protocols.

I'm testing the NI Web Server Temp Monitoring Web App Example WebVI.zip ‏743 KB

I correctly ran desktop VI and NI web-served apps locally on my laptop with the NI Web Server. I activated the retention=100 to count for the "Test1.AllData" tag, but trying to retrieve the tags history I get the error message 404 as shown in the following printscreen. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I would appreciate it if someone could orient me.

Best regards.

[MilanR]

Tag history and Alarms are not part of the features included with G Web Development Software. Those are services that are included with SystemLink Server. The How to Build a Web UI for Your LabVIEW-Based Test System @4:32 gives a discussion of how the services included with G Web Development Software compare to those of SystemLink Server.

[jesushidalgo]

Thank you very much, Milan.

I installed Systemlink and now I have history records.