Transactional integrity in a segmented database architecture

A method comprising:

• providing, by a real-time database segment of a segmented database, real-time data values representing a current state of a plurality of process devices within a process to a real-time application executing on a computing device, wherein the real-time data values comprise one or more real-time fields of the real-time database segment;
• and
• providing, by a first configuration database segment of the segmented database separate from the real-time database segment, a first set of configuration data values representing one or more characteristics of the process devices to the real-time application during an operational state of the real-time database segment;
• providing, by a second configuration database segment of the segmented database separate from the real-time database segment, a second set of configuration data values representing one or more characteristics of the process devices to the real-time application during an operational state of the second configuration database segment, wherein the first set of configuration data values comprise one or more configuration fields of the real-time database segment and the second set of configuration data values comprise one or more configuration fields of the second configuration database, and wherein the first and second database segments are responsive to a configuration switch to selectively enter the operational state or an edit state;
• and
• performing one or more of the following:
• reading, by the real-time application, the real-time data values from the real-time fields and the first set of configuration data values from the configuration fields as a first combined atomic record during the operational state of the first combined configuration database segment;
• reading, by the real-time application, the real-time data values from the real-time fields and the second set of configuration data values from the configuration fields as a second combined atomic record during the operational state of the second configuration database segment;
• locking, by the real-time application, the real-time fields from having the real-time data values written thereto during the operational state of either the first configuration database segment or the second configuration database segment;
• locking, by the real-time application, the configuration fields of the first configuration database from having the first set of configuration data values written thereto during the operational state of the first configuration database segment;
• locking, by the real-time application, the configuration fields of the second configuration database from having the second set of configuration data values written thereto during the operational state of the second configuration database segment;
• permitting, by the real-time application, the configuration fields of the first configuration database to have the first set of configuration data values written thereto during the edit state of the first configuration database segment;
• and
• permitting, by the real-time application, the configuration fields of the second configuration database to have the second set of configuration data values written thereto during the edit state of the second configuration database segment.

A system comprising:

• a plurality of process devices within a process with each device having characteristics thereof;
• a segmented database having separate shared memory segments comprising:
• an operational configuration segment of the database including one or more fields of configuration data adapted to have configuration data values read therefrom by a real-time application during an operational state of the operational configuration segment, wherein the configuration data values represent one or more of the characteristics of the process devices within the process;
• and
• an edit configuration segment of the database including one or more fields of configuration data adapted to have configuration data values written thereto by an editor during an edit state of the edit configuration segment;
• a real-time segment of the database including one or more fields of real-time data adapted to have real-time data values read therefrom by the real-time application, wherein the real-time data values represent a current state of the process devices within the process;
• wherein the operational configuration segment is responsive to a configuration switch to enter the operational state and the edit configuration segment is responsive to the configuration switch to enter the edit state such that the operational state of the operational configuration segment is concurrent with the edit state of the edit configuration segment;
• and
• a computing device configured to execute the real-time application for performing one or more of the following operations on the segmented database:
• reading the real-time data values from the real-time data fields and the configuration data values from the configuration data fields as a combined atomic record structure during the operational state of the operational configuration segment;
• locking the real-time data fields from having real-time data values written thereto during the operational state of the operational configuration segment;
• locking the configuration data fields from having configuration data values written thereto during the operational state of the operational configuration segment;
• and
• wherein the computing device is further configured to execute the editor for writing the configuration data values to the configuration data fields during the edit state of the edit configuration segment.