Compressed SIE file downloads
The compressed SIE file download feature only changes data in transit. Regardless of whether compressed SIE file downloads are on or off, the user will still receive an uncompressed SIE file on their computer. This is not to be mistaken with “compressed SIE files” which would compress the SIE file itself into an archive such as zip, tar, gz, etc. and then transfer that compressed file resulting in the user having a compressed archive after a download completes. To reiterate, the user will ALWAYS receive an uncompressed SIE file on the downloading machine regardless of whether or not compressed SIE file downloads are enabled or not.
The following topic is provided to help the user ascertain whether it makes sense to turn compressed SIE file downloads on or off. Due to the many variables at play the following comparisons should be balanced against the user’s application and business requirements.
For example, if the application of use requires the XR unit to be connected, accessed, and data downloaded over a metered cellular connection, then on those grounds alone, turning on compressed SIE file downloads makes sense.
As another example, if the application of use allows for a direct ethernet connection to the XR unit for SIE downloads, it may or may not make sense to turn compressed SIE file downloads on, depending on the size of the SIE file, the network negotiation speed of the link, and the speed of computer executing the download.
The two metrics affected by this option are time and total data transferred.
The total download time with compression turned on depends heavily on the network link speed and the machine being used to execute the download. A slow machine with limited processing power and RAM for example may take an extremely long time to decompress the data after it has arrived, making the total transfer time much longer than a typical SIE download with compression turned off. However, a very powerful machine may take much less time to decompress the data after it has arrived, thus reducing the total transfer time. As expected, higher link speeds will generally yield shorter download time, than lower link speeds.
The total data transferred will depend heavily on the type of data collected. For example, SIE files with diverse data types such as CAN, analog, and video channels in it will have vastly varied compression ratios from test to test, compared to SIE files where only typical analog numerical data is stored which would ordinarily yield higher and more consistent compression ratios. With SIE compressed downloads turned on, the user can expect a considerable reduction in the total data transferred. For customers using metered cellular connections, this is an attractive option.
In our theoretical setup, firmware version 2.8.0 was used, the SIE data comprised of simple numerical values (no CAN, no video), varying SIE file sizes of 100MB, 500MB, and 1000MB, with downloads executed at the specified connection speeds, with compression turned on or off, using a very powerful machine with lots of processing power and memory.
The following table shows our laboratory results using the CX23-R.
SIE File Size | Network Speed | Compression | Total Data Transferred | % Compression | Total Download Time (seconds) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
100MB | 1Gbit | Off | 103,283KB | N/A | 10 |
100MB | 100Mbit | Off | 103,283KB | N/A | 12 |
100MB | 10Mbit | Off | 103,283KB | N/A | 91 |
500MB | 1Gbit | Off | 503,547KB | N/A | 53 |
500MB | 100Mbit | Off | 503,547KB | N/A | 55 |
500MB | 10Mbit | Off | 503,547KB | N/A | 439 |
1000MB | 1Gbit | Off | 1,004,968KB | N/A | 93 |
1000MB | 100Mbit | Off | 1,004,968KB | N/A | 111 |
1000MB | 10Mbit | Off | 1,004,968KB | N/A | 875 |
100MB | 1Gbit | On | 5,087KB | 95% | 11 |
100MB | 100Mbit | On | 5,087KB | 95% | 14 |
100MB | 10Mbit | On | 5,087KB | 95% | 10 |
500MB | 1Gbit | On | 13,166KB | 97% | 45 |
500MB | 100Mbit | On | 13,166KB | 97% | 52 |
500MB | 10Mbit | On | 13,166KB | 97% | 45 |
1000MB | 1Gbit | On | 42,889KB | 95% | 95 |
1000MB | 100Mbit | On | 42,889KB | 95% | 100 |
1000MB | 10Mbit | On | 42,889KB | 95% | 96 |
In all cases, with compression turned off, the total data transferred was as expected, 100MB, 500MB, and 1000MB respectively. However, with compression turned on (in this case achieving 95% to 97% compression), the total data transferred for a 100MB file was reduced to 5MB, 500MB file was reduced to 13MB, and 1000MB file reduced to 43MB approximately.
The resultant download times were very similar when using a 1 Gbit or 100Mbit connection whether compression was turned on or off, however when using a slower 10 Mbit connection (which is similar to performance one may see using a metered cellular connection), there were huge reductions in the time required to download an SIE file (in addition to the advantage of reducing the overall data transferred).
The following table shows our laboratory results using the eDAQXR.
SIE File Size | Network Speed | Compression | Total Data Transferred | % Compression | Total Download Time (seconds) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
100MB | 1Gbit | Off | 99,916KB | N/A | 12 |
100MB | 100Mbit | Off | 99,916KB | N/A | 12 |
100MB | 10Mbit | Off | 99,916KB | N/A | 90 |
500MB | 1Gbit | Off | 501,101KB | N/A | 61 |
500MB | 100Mbit | Off | 501,101KB | N/A | 60 |
500MB | 10Mbit | Off | 501,101KB | N/A | 440 |
1000MB | 1Gbit | Off | 1,000,961KB | N/A | 90 |
1000MB | 100Mbit | Off | 1,000,961KB | N/A | 115 |
1000MB | 10Mbit | Off | 1,000,961KB | N/A | 873 |
100MB | 1Gbit | On | 17,152KB | 82% | 13 |
100MB | 100Mbit | On | 17,152KB | 82% | 13 |
100MB | 10Mbit | On | 17,152KB | 82% | 16 |
500MB | 1Gbit | On | 61,155KB | 87% | 49 |
500MB | 100Mbit | On | 61,155KB | 87% | 49 |
500MB | 10Mbit | On | 61,155KB | 87% | 56 |
1000MB | 1Gbit | On | 52,274KB | 95% | 55 |
1000MB | 100Mbit | On | 52,274KB | 95% | 55 |
1000MB | 10Mbit | On | 52,274KB | 95% | 58 |
In all cases, with compression turned off, the total data transferred was as expected, 100MB, 500MB, and 1000MB respectively. However, with compression turned on (in this case achieving between 82% and 95% compression), the total data transferred for a 100MB file was reduced to 17MB, 500MB file was reduced to 61MB, and 1000MB file reduced to 52MB approximately.
As stated earlier, we recommend that the user tests the typical use cases for the application of the XR unit to find what best meets their time and business requirements.