As part of our ongoing Summer of IoT Blog Series, this week we will continue to review the exciting new release of Cogent DataHub Version 11. In a previous post, Cogent DataHub V11 Features to Be Excited About, we covered how Version 11 introduced significant updates, including enhancements to the OPC DA Client Connections and User Interface. In this post, we will deep dive into features aimed at enhancing user experience, increasing application flexibility, increasing configuration scalability, and reducing troubleshooting time.
Enhancements to OPC DA Client Connections
One notable improvement is the ability for DataHub to function as an OPC DA server without requiring a "DomainName:" prefix. Prior to the latest release, the assigned DataHub data domain or “bucket” had to be prefixed to each OPC item in your OPC client when accessing the DataHub OPC DA server. This enhancement ensures that item names from DataHub align perfectly with those from the source OPC server. This change simplifies configuration and improves user interaction by streamlining tag management in your OPC client, especially when you are inserting the DataHub between an existing client and server.
Cogent DataHub (version prior to V11) OPC Item Format:
Cogent DataHub V11 OPC Item Format:
This enhancement also simplifies OPC secure data tunneling, removing the requirement to modify the tag names in your existing OPC client. For those not familiar, Tunneling is connecting one DataHub to another to securely stream data over a network in a proxy & DMZ friendly fashion using TCP/IP as the transport protocol. This is often used for OPC DA remote communication and allows users to avoid the problems associated with configuring DCOM, but also for securely moving any data that DataHub can access through firewalls, DMZs, proxies, between business offices, between business partners, and more.
This new feature enables DataHub Tunneller to seamlessly drop in between any existing OPC server and client. By eliminating the need for domain prefixes on all tags in OPC DA connections, existing clients configured with specific tag names can now integrate with DataHub tunneling directly. This allows you to retain your tag names in your client without requiring reconfiguration, which significantly reduces time to value and compatibility with your existing systems.
Enhancements to the View Data / Data Browser Feature
The Origin Column
Major additions to the Data Browser, accessed via the View Data button in the DataHub user interface, are also included in the latest release to increase time to value and reduce troubleshooting time. The Data Browser is a feature of DataHub that lets you see the live data moving through the system in a hierarchical view. The tool is a great way to verify successful configuration of DataHub and is just one of its many system monitoring & optimization tools.
A new Origin column in the browser displays detailed information on the source of the tag. This information includes the user configured connection name and the connection type for each data point. This column will also match the information found within the Connection Viewer, a window that gives a real-time view into all configured DataHub connections.
To show you this feature in detail, I have pre-configured an OPC DA Client connection from Cogent DataHub V11 to my OPC Server, TOP Server. For this connection, I have assigned the Domain name of “OPC_DA_DATA”.
Once completed, we now see our new OPC DA Client connection listed within the Connection Viewer window. In the image below, we can see that my new connection has been assigned the connection Type “OPC” and the label matches the connection name I configured above, “TOPServerOPCDA”.
Now, let’s look at the Data Browsers’ new Origin column. On the left side of the window, we selected the Domain name assigned to our connection, OPC_DA_Data. On the right side of the window, we can see the new Origin column, with the assigned connection name and type that matches both the Connection Viewer and the OPC DA Client connection configured above.
Write usage info to Event Log
Another addition to the Data Browser is the ability to right click your tag and access a variety of actions. A particularly useful action is “Write usage info to Event Log”, which informs the user of which clients are subscribed to each tag and which clients are writing to it. This capability becomes especially useful when unexpected behavior occurs since you’ll be able to reference the application event log history to find out what happened, thus reducing troubleshooting time.
You can access this feature by right clicking on any tag and selecting “Write usage info to Event Log.”
Now, navigating to the DataHub Event Log we can see what client is subscribed and writing to this tag. This feature can be used for troubleshooting when a tag has an incorrect value. Using this new feature would be easy to tell what else could be writing to this tag.
Deleting Points from the Data Browser
With the release of DataHub V11, users now have the option to delete points from the Data Browser, which serves a useful purpose in tag management. If you choose to delete a point, it's temporarily removed from view, allowing you to assess the potential impact without committing to permanent deletion. However, the underlying tag associated with the point remains in memory, which assists us in understanding the importance of the origin feature. Once you've identified the origin of the tag, the next step is to determine where and how it's being used.
This is where the "Write usage info to Event Log" feature proves its usefulness. It allows you to pinpoint which clients are subscribed to and writing to that specific point. Once you have disconnected any clients, you can utilize the Origin Feature to locate the data source and deactivate the tag permanently.
Data Browser now supports Copy
In DataHub V11 it is possible to copy meta information such as name, value, and a JSON representation from a data point or any level of a branch. We support a copy to JSON with a few different options. These can be beneficial for users consuming JSON data formats to create a quick JSON payload, reducing configuration time and errors when integrating with other systems.
- Copy Qualified name : Qualified name from DataHub in a format ready for paste operations. This feature is particularly handy when selecting multiple tag names, as you can swiftly compile them into a .csv file for seamless import into your client application.
- Copy Value: This feature allows users to copy the current Value of the Tag directly from the View Data tab.
User Interface Import & Export Options:
In Version 11 the Remote Config application allows you to export configuration to CSV files, as well as import them, increasing configuration scalability and time to value. It is important to note that the Import and Export features are available in the DataHub Remote Config application included with every DataHub license, but is not in the DataHub local configuration UI. This functionality is supported for OPC DA, OPC UA, Bridging, MQTT Client, Modbus, External Historian, and Historian.
To see which properties are available for OPC DA, OPC UA, Bridging, MQTT Client, Modbus, External Historian, and Historian please see the Cogent DataHub Help File.
Conclusion
Now that we have covered how the improvements to DataHub version 11 can optimize your user experience within the OPC DA feature, Data Browser/View Data, Event Log and more, we hope that you will want to test these features out for yourself.
Whether you are a new user or existing user we know you will see the great value that Version 11 brings. Be sure and check out our recent blog post about the significant DataHub V11 security enhancements.
We are eager to continue exploring these updates in detail over the coming months. Our upcoming blogs will delve into various feature groups, offering insights into how these enhancements can benefit your operations, so don’t forget to subscribe to our technical blog!
For New customers who would like to test these features out please download the Version 11 DataHub demo here.
For our existing users who already own DataHub Licenses please request your upgrade license here.
