Software Toolbox Technical Blog

Tags, nodes, points, items, symbols – in our industry, we often see these terms thrown around, but in most instances, we’re all talking about the same thing. From the TOP Server OPC Server's perspective, we refer to them as tags. A tag is an OPC Server software application’s representation of a device address to use for communication. This is how your HMI, SCADA, MES, historian, or other client application is able to consume data. If you’re a TOP Server user, you know that you are required to configure tags to get data from your device, but did you know there are multiple options of how to accomplish this?

Have you ever wondered why certain features in TOP Server work the way you experience them, or how something might work in certain scenarios?  Well this blog post tries to answer a few of those type of questions!

Anyone that has used TOP Server before has had to make edits to the configuration. While TOP Server allows changes to many settings while actively collecting and serving data, and makes it simple, there are things to consider to avoid disrupting operations. TOP Server has certain restrictions in place when making configuration changes, and while potentially frustrating, these are for your benefit and security. For example, perhaps you have tried to make a certain change, but observed that the setting immediately changes back and “doesn’t stick”. Or maybe you’ve logged onto your machine and were unable to make any configuration changes at all. Why is that?

LGH File Inspector for AVEVA InTouch (formerly Wonderware) enables easy, scalable, fast access to local daily historical data files (*.lgh files) logged by AVEVA InTouch applications without the limitations imposed by other solutions. There are many advanced features in the product and options for automating queries to run without user interaction to generate reports, exports, and more.  

When working with OPC Router, especially as you build larger and more powerful projects to integrate OPC, web services, databases, ERP, SAP, and other systems in your Industry 4.0 initiatives, it’s good to have an idea of the underlying operations of the application. That knowledge can empower you to get the best results from the software’s many connectors and visual workflow engine.  If you’ve never heard of or are new to OPC Router, we invite you to explore the OPC Router website and view the OPC Router Getting Started Virtual Training Video. 

In the ever-changing landscape of industrial control, the ability to establish connections and facilitate efficient data exchange between different technologies is crucial. With digital transformation, the industry requires robust integration solutions more than ever before. This is where the powerful combination of OPC Router, it's ability to both call and host REST APIs using industrial data, and OAuth 2.0 comes into play, enabling organizations to achieve secure and streamlined communication across their automation and other systems.

The engineering definition of redundancy is “the inclusion of extra components which are not strictly necessary to functioning, in case of failure in other components.” In the Industrial Automation space, redundancy is critical. Not planning for redundancy can easily result in vulnerability to financial losses due to unexpected downtime. There are multiple types of redundancy in the industry. In this blog, we will be covering “Media-Level Redundancy”.

With the release of the OPC Data Client 2023.1 toolkit, custom OPC client developers will benefit from improvements targeted at platform support, developer productivity, and custom application end user productivity.  If you missed the OPC Data Client 2022 releases, be sure and read what we added to OPC Data Client in 2022. As always, OPC Data Client license holders on an active support and maintenance agreement are entitled to free upgrades.

As a continuation of our Tech Support Corner blog series, this post will look at how to set up a query in LGH File Inspector, how to export LGH data, and some of the configurable options available in LGH File Inspector.