Software Toolbox Technical Blog

There is nothing like talking to each other in person and establishing that individual connection

Do you get tons of invitations to various events and wonder “Why should I go? Is this worth my time? What’s in it for me?” Industry events are more than just get togethers of a bunch of salespeople; they’re opportunities to explore innovation, solve challenges, and connect with experts who understand the challenges you are facing. We bring actual technical experts who understand you and want to help you find the right solutions. Meet and engage with our team that you may have already emailed or had virtual meetings with – but this time in person! 

Over the last several years, it has become a beloved tradition to start the new blog year with a review of the most popular content the team at Software Toolbox put together to build your automation software skills and empower your success. This is the 8th installment of this blog summary covering a wide variety of topics. But first things first: make sure you are subscribed to our blog. We publish new content at least once a week, and you have full control over the frequency of when you are notified.

Although Cogent DataHub is best known for its wide range of connectivity interfaces, its intuitive design for configuring and using its features—both locally and remotely—is equally important for users like you.

Remote configuration has been a standout feature of Cogent DataHub since Version 9, enabling you to interact with a local DataHub instance running as a Windows service or remotely manage and configure any DataHub instance across your enterprise. And with security top of mind, the DataHub installs with Remote Configuration disabled by default, making it secure out-of-the-box. 

In this blog, you'll learn how to use DataHub's remote configuration tool so you can:

• Simplify configuration management across your organization by accessing multiple DataHub instances from one location.
• Avoid interruptions and enhance efficiency with the ability to make changes while the Windows service is running.
• Prevent unauthorized changes with a digitally signed one-click install over a secure TCP connection with flexible, user-configurable roles and permission sets.
• Speed up configuration with CSV Import support for OPC UA, OPC DA, Bridging, MQTT Client, Modbus and Local & External Historian.

Continue reading to learn how you can enable and set up DataHub Remote Configuration.

Streamline Operations, Improve Visibility, Enable Compliance, and Drive Success

In the highly regulated and fast-paced oil and gas industry, leveraging real-time, secure data is crucial for improving operational efficiency, ensuring safety, and meeting regulatory compliance standards. Software Toolbox delivers software solutions designed to enable data integration that is a must for the applications you use to monitor, manage, streamline and optimize operations across all sectors of the oil and gas value chain. Our solutions deliver the critical data you need, whether you're in upstream exploration, midstream pipeline management, or downstream refining.

Read the rest of the blog to learn how we can help drive your operations forward.

Redundancy is a broad concept, as explored in our Demystifying Redundancy Blog. In this post, we narrow the focus on how to manage redundant OPC servers—a critical topic for ensuring reliable process communications to your HMI, SCADA, MES, Historian, etc. Redundancy is crucial because it ensures continuous operation and data integrity in the event of system failures, minimizing downtime and potential losses.

Simply deploying two OPC servers connected to your PLCs doesn’t make them redundant. We're sometimes asked about having the two OPC servers communicate and decide when to failover. That sounds good but has a flaw. If the client loses network connection to one OPC server but the two OPC servers are still communicating, and the HMI/SCADA doesn’t have any internal failover mechanism, then no failover will occur.

You can make more confident and informed decisions when you have accurate and relevant data to base those decisions on. Operational data is crucial because it enables you to track performance, quickly identify issues, and make decisions based on up-to-date information, resulting in enhanced efficiency and effectiveness.

And in the current times of AI, Big Data, IoT, and countless other hot topics, many of the long-standing technologies that power many industries are left out of the limelight. For some users, the likeliness of OPC and SQL databases are well known and have been the basis for many simplified data collection projects. For others, there are still new and growing requirements to digitize data and interconnect a variety of sources into an easily accessible and manageable location. With Software Toolbox’s large variety of solutions we help both big and small companies alike meet their needs.

When working with Modbus communication, understanding the key concept of function codes is essential for ensuring efficient and accurate data exchange. Sometimes a device manual might only refer to the supported Modbus function codes and the range of offsets available for those function codes. A solid understanding of function codes is critical in achieving optimized performance and resolving potential communication issues.

After reading this blog, you'll know how you can leverage TOP Server’s Modbus driver to automatically handle the appropriate function codes for your application – while also taking advantage of its flexibility and other advanced features – to enhance performance, ensure compatibility with your devices, and reduce troubleshooting time.

IoT, IIoT, MQTT, Big Data, and The Cloud—these tools and technologies are shaping the future of various industries. But how do you actually bring your critical process or control data into the cloud for real-time analytics, predictive maintenance, or smart manufacturing? That’s the most critical part, because in today’s connected world, data is power. Organizations are leveraging IoT and IIoT to optimize operations, predict maintenance issues before they happen, and unlock insights through advanced analytics in the cloud. That’s where Amazon AWS IoT Core and Cogent DataHub IoT Gateway come in.