Software Toolbox Technical Blog

As Cogent DataHub continues to evolve, version 11.04 delivers a focused set of enhancements that build on the powerful foundation introduced with the V11 major release. This update prioritizes performance, reliability, and expanded cloud readiness, ensuring DataHub remains a trusted platform for moving industrial data efficiently and securely. 

If you've been following along with our latest blog posts, you've probably heard Kepware Edge mentioned alongside the newly released version 7 of TOP Server. The question you may have now is: where does this fit, and how does it apply to me? The goal of this post is to answer this with a brief description and practical overview of Kepware Edge plus some case studies of when it makes sense to use it further below.

As we leave 2025 behind us and welcome 2026, it’s clear that industrial connectivity and digital transformation continue to be front and center. All year long, Software Toolbox’s technical blog shared practical insights to help IT/OT professionals solve real-world challenges, from mastering classic protocols to embracing cutting-edge integration strategies. 

In today’s industrial world, data is king - but only if it’s accessible, accurate, and connected. Unfortunately, many organizations face a sneaky intruder: the Data Grinch. Unlike its Christmas counterpart, this troublemaker isn’t after gifts or holiday cheer. It steals efficiency, insights, and the very momentum of your digital transformation. It hides in siloed systems, outdated protocols, scattered data, and fragile integrations. Left unchecked, it slows decision-making, frustrates teams, and undermines operational performance.

By now, you’ve probably heard that TOP Server V7 has officially landed. Maybe you’ve seen the announcements or caught a quick overview along the way. But if you find yourself wondering, “Okay, but what does this release actually change for me?” you’re in the right place.

While V7 continues to reinforce the stability and reliability TOP Server is known for, this release also introduces several important enhancements aimed at strengthening enterprise deployments, simplifying user management, and modernizing system compatibility. Whether you’re operating on the latest infrastructure or maintaining long-standing environments, V7 delivers meaningful improvements that make deployment more flexible, secure, and future-ready.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s new.

In the ever-growing digital landscape of manufacturing operations, single use solutions & applications may solve issues, but also create their own data silos. These silos present multiple challenges (limited visibility, slower decision-making, security blind spots) and lead to missed opportunities due to the complex management of varying solutions. For example, OPC HDA is a standard utilized for collecting and sharing historical data across industrial automation technology solutions. Based on the standards of OPC DA, integration challenges arise due to the dependency of COM and remote DCOM connections, creating incompatibility with newer solutions and technologies.

Today we'll explore how Cogent DataHub was used to solve many of these integration headaches and silos by providing a middleware platform for connectivity between a variety of protocols and technologies. With the latest major revision of Cogent DataHub V11, the ability to collect historical OPC HDA data is now possible with the addition of the OPC HDA Client capability.

Your organization has a custom developed application that performs important tasks, and you need to provide access to that software from an HMI, SCADA, Historian, MES, or other system acting as an OPC UA Client. Adding an OPC UA server interface to a custom application that either you've developed or that you've taken over from someone else can be a daunting task. This is especially true if you're unfamiliar with the low-level details of the OPC UA specification.

Accelerate OPC UA Server Development with the OPC Wizard Toolkit

The OPC Wizard UA Server Development Toolkit addresses this reality head-on by providing a rapid development framework that handles the underlying OPC UA nuts and bolts for you. In a recent webinar we covered how to add an OPC UA Server interface to a custom .NET software application using OPC Wizard, without having to become an “OPC wizard” yourself.

Rather than spending hours on end diving into the specifications and debugging protocol details, you can utilize simple read, write, and subscribe methods, resulting in less engineering time and faster ROI.

While Halloween and this time of year offers a few good scares, our customers in manufacturing face year-round nightmares that are far less fun: connectivity issues that stop production and unreliable data collection that restricts their ability to make informed decisions.

When your SCADA system can't communicate with your PLCs, your MES is missing critical data, and your operators are working without visibility into what's actually happening on the production floor, you're dealing with the kind of problems that lead to unplanned downtime, missed targets, and lost productivity.

In this post, we'll run through how our TOP Server handles common connectivity challenges, cover some practical tips for getting the most out of your setup, and show you how using remote configuration tools can simplify management across multiple servers, which all enable you to focus on production instead of troubleshooting communication nightmares.