Software Toolbox Technical Blog

AVEVA™ users have a range of native connectivity options for interfacing with different systems. OPC Router also supports connectivity to variety of different systems that users sometimes need to access from AVEVA System Platform. Users of AVEVA System Platform can leverage OI Gateway to easily and securely connect to OPC Router via OPC UA for connections to many other data sources.

In this blog post, we will cover the basic steps to connect AVEVA System Platform to OPC Router via OPC UA, enabling additional connectivity options for AVEVA users to systems such as SAP (and other ERPs), a variety of relational and other databases, conversion of file data including CSV, XML, JSON and others, IIoT systems including REST and SOAP web services and MQTT brokers and more.

If you have been following our blog for a while or have been exploring IoT platforms available in the market, you may know that the Google Cloud Platform combined with the Google IoT Core is a frequently used combination in the industry. Google has recently announced that it will be shutting down the Google IoT Core. In doing so, Google is forcing many of its Cloud Platform users to switch platforms.

In this blog post, we will review detailed information about the alternatives to the Google Cloud Platform that are available for use with all of the IoT capable products we provide, and how the change works.

The LGH File Inspector software solution enables rapid query and export of Wonderware InTouch LGH files to Excel & CSV for analysis and reporting. Following on the recent LGH File Inspector v3 release a few months ago, the LGH File Inspector has been updated again to Version 3.5.

This release is all about “Faster Time to ROI” with much faster queries, ways to add calculated value to the data, and more options for how to view & export data, and access recently run projects. Find out how these updates can benefit you with this technically deep blog post.

Modbus is one of the most widely used protocols around the world, implemented as the communications protocol by many different vendors for integration with other systems. If you're reading this, you likely have at least one Modbus device (whether it's a PLC, RTU or other device) being used in your industrial process and need to integrate data from that process.

In this video blog, I'll show you how to get started using our Modbus TCP Ethernet driver and it's flexible settings to connect and gather real-time process data from pretty much any Modbus Ethernet capable device for HMI, SCADA, MES and other client applications.

As someone who has worked with non-standard device connectivity using OmniServer for over 16 years, I consider myself well-versed in some of the more obscure nuances of certain protocols that a user might need to implement and how to do so in OmniServer.  It's very common for non-standard device protocols to simply be some combination of ASCII alpha-numeric characters with some special characters mixed in for starting messages, terminating messages or as delimiters.

Many OmniServer users may not be aware, though, that there are certain ASCII characters that are used in OmniServer protocol messages that have special meaning. So when you come across a device protocol that requires those characters to be sent or receive as-is (namely backslashes, curly braces and square brackets), there is some special handling required when configuring your OmniServer protocol .

Returning and expanding our "Did You Know" OmniServer blog post series, I'll cover the usage of some common special syntax characters for OmniServer protocol messages and how to, when needed, escape their special status in the message so they can be treated as their original ASCII equivalent instead.

It's important for any enterprise to have actionable data in the timeliest fashion for making decisions. Minimizing downtime and increasing performance are important to the profitability of any company and knowledge at the point of action is key.

To that end, automating notifications or reports based on the latest process data from your various systems can ensure you're never in the dark when it comes to your processes.

In this post, I will cover step-by-step how to easily automate email notifications and reports for OPC and data sources with the OPC Router for giving you and other decision makers the knowledge you need to make informed decision as quickly as possible.

Allen-Bradley's Logix family of PLCs and PACs is one of the most popular controllers across many automated industries. If you're reading this, you likely have at least one Logix controller being used in your industrial process and need to integrate data from that process.

In this video blog, I'll show you how to get started using our ControlLogix Ethernet driver to connect and gather real-time process data from Logix controllers for HMI, SCADA, MES and other client applications.

OPC Router provides connectivity to a wide range of data sources including ERP systems such as SAP, a variety of relational and other databases, conversion of file data including CSV, XML, JSON and others, IIoT systems including REST and SOAP web services and MQTT brokers and more. It's often necessary for OPC UA client applications (such as HMIs, SCADAs and other software clients) to need access to such data sources. OPC Router also supports acting as an OPC UA server.

In this blog post, we will cover the basic steps to map such non-OPC UA data sources supported by OPC Router to OPC UA nodes/items for access by external OPC UA clients.