Welcome to our most popular blog post of the year! This post is our 6th annual sharing of references to learning resources including new whitepapers, our ever hot Tech Support Corner, a new AVEVA Users Corner, and new technology releases that users have told us were the most helpful to them over the course of the last year.
2022 accelerated transformations as industry worldwide continued to adapt to succeed in the face of ongoing challenges in supply chain, inflation, labor shortages, and exploding customer demand. Each year we publish this blog post to help you learn, grow, and support empowering you to improve your business.
New Whitepaper: SAP to PLC/Production Integration Challenges & Alternatives
Integrating SAP to PLCs, OT and other production systems can be challenging for many valid reasons. Learn the terminology and interface types available in SAP. Discover options with visual integration workflows that reduce complexity and improve efficiency and results.
OPC Integration Resources
- DCOM Hardening - Are you ready for the March 14, 2023 Microsoft changes? Do you know what they are? Learn what they are and why you need to be ready, what you can do
- E-Book - Exploring OPC UA Security Concepts
- Converting OPC DA Servers to OPC UA
- New to OPC? Have questions, get our free guide
- Understanding OPC Redundancy Options
IoT Integration, Collaboration Tips
- Converting OPC UA data to MQTT SparkplugB
- XML to OPC Integration
- Integrating OPC UA data with Microsoft Teams to deliver real-time process data updates
- Parsing multiple JSON formats on a single MQTT connection - DataHub Advanced Parser
- Integrating OPC with Amazon AWS
- Integrating OPC with Azure Iot Hub
- Integrating RESTful web services with OPC and exposing OPC data via REST
Product Training
Here are some of our most popular training over time and a few new things
- TOP Server Training Videos
- Using the TOP Server Application Report
- OmniServer Training Videos
- DataHub Training Videos
- Understanding DataHub Redundancy
- OPC Router Training Videos
- OPC Data Client Development Toolkit Basic Training
- Flow V6 - Unifying process and business data sources with aggregations, calculations, and dashboarding for operational insights
Product Improvements
We've had several product updates, too many to list, but here's some highlights in case you missed anything:
- LGH File Inspector - Query speed increase of up to 80%, resulting in over 700% performance boost, support for AVEVA InTouch 2023 with extended tag name 128 character lengths, making this tool for accessing local LGH history files more powerful than ever - Learn More about LGH File Inspector
- DataHub - External Historian support for AVEVA historian offerings including PI Server and AVEVA Insight in the cloud along with the MQTT Smart Broker and Client with SparkplugB support have proven to be very popular complements to the rest of the extensive DataHub functionality. As users prepared for DCOM Hardening, the OPC Gateway functionality had helped many users remove the risks of DCOM.
- OPC Router - Version 4.28 - MQTT Sparkplug A & B and MQTT 5 support, Oracle Cloud Database support, new triggers for more flexibility, new optional subscription license options & more - Learn More about OPC Router
- TOP Server - Currently on version 6.12.361.0 as of this blog post. There was also a 6.11.764.0 update release in 2022. Each release included multiple driver and plug-in improvements, OPC UA Security improvements and more are detailed in the release notes. Users are encouraged to remain on an active support & maintenance agreement for free upgrades.
- A big update is the S7 Plus Ethernet driver with native symbolic/tagname communications for S7-1200 and 1500 PLCs, released late 2021 but receiving several improvements in 6.12. The regular S7 Ethernet driver also received significant updates including TIA Portal V17 support.
- The Rockwell/AB ControlLogix driver now supports firmware V34
- Learn more about TOP Server
- OmniServer - More users than ever before took advantage of OmniServer's ability to integrate serial, USB, and Ethernet devices that don't use standard protocols. This year we added support for Windows 11 and Server 2022, streamlined configuration sharing, OPC UA security updates, and more protocol message CSV import/export options and more. Learn more about OmniServer
- Flow V6 - buffered data sources, enabling direct access to real-time data without a historian, improved data entry forms, improved dashboard navigation, and capabilities to pre-filter data and make it even more useful for measures without increasing license size. Learn more about Flow
Tech Support Corner
- Understanding TOP Server Device Scan Modes and how they can help you
- Using simulation mode in TOP Server drivers
- Understanding TOP Server channel & device capacities and basic performance factors
- Using Powershell for troubleshooting TCP/Ethernet connections
- Power user tip: Scripting Wireshark for TCP/Ethernet connection troubleshooting
- Troubleshooting AVEVA Suitelink Connections
View More Tech Support Corner Posts
Our support team has a lot planned for 2023 so be sure you are subscribed to our technical blog.
Developer's Corner
- OPC Data Client was updated to expand OPC UA security policies, support for Visual Studio 2022, .NET Framework 4.8.1, streamlined deployment and enhanced troubleshooting tools.
- Symbol Factory .NET and Industrial Gadgets.NET now support Visual Studio 2019, Windows 10
- Building Custom OPC Client Applications with Low-Code
- Building Custom OPC Client Applications with No Code
- Benefits of using Development Toolkits in custom OPC Client and OPC Server application development
Our team was very busy producing new content to help our users of AVEVA software such as InTouch, System Platform, Historian and more reduce integration cost and time to solution. One of our most popular solutions is the TOP Server OPC Client Suite, which provides a scalable reliable Suitelink to OPC UA gateway for AVEVA InTouch and System Platform - find out how here.
Many of our key products support the AVEVA native Suitelink interface and will continue to as that is the easiest connection for the AVEVA side to configure, but we had more requests for "how to connect via OPC UA" so our team made some helpful tutorial blogs this year. AVEVA InTouch
- Connecting as an OPC UA client to TOP Server
- Connecting as an OPC UA client to Cogent DataHub
- Connecting as an OPC UA client to OmniServer
AVEVA System Platform
- Connecting System Platform to OmniServer using OPC UA
- Integrating Cogent DataHub with System Platform as an OPC UA client
- Integrating Cogent DataHub with System Platform as an OPC UA Server
- Connecting TOP Server to the System Platform OPC UA Server
- Connecting OPC Router to the System Platform OPC UA Server
Conclusion
We hope you found this resource useful and that it helps you hone your skills and knowledge throughout this year and beyond. Subscribe to our blog and, as always, if you have questions, let us know.
