Software Toolbox Technical Blog

If you've read our other posts on sharing XML data, you'll remember that our tech support team regularly gets asked how to integrate XML (eXtensible Markup Language) data with other systems such as OPC clients or servers, databases, devices or even the cloud.

Continuing our discussion on Integrating XML Data (part of our continuing Tech Support Corner blog series), this post covers how to integrate XML data with a variety of other systems including OPC clients and servers, databases and more using the built-in scripting engine and interfaces of Cogent DataHub. 

If you read our last post on sharing XML data, you may recall that our tech support engineers are regularly asked how to take data provided in an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) format (file or data stream) and share it with other systems such as OPC clients or servers, databases, devices or even the cloud.

In this Integrating XML Data sub-topic of our continuing Tech Support Corner blog series, this post covers how to easily integrate XML data with OPC systems when designing a custom developed application. 

A question our tech support engineers get asked quite regularly is how to take data stored in an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) file and share it with other systems such as OPC clients or servers, databases, devices or even the cloud.

Continuing our Tech Support Corner blog series, this post covers a high level review of what options are available for integrating XML file data with your other systems. As part of this series, we'll have supplemental posts on each of the options discussed covering how to use them in more detail. 

As you may be aware, OmniServer is updated several times a year to add additional useful features and tools, and to resolve any known issues as part of our continuous improvement process.

In this post, I will cover updates and enhancements available in OmniServer V3.2.0.5 to help you with increased flexibility for implementing protocols and updates for OPC UA client connectivity for integrating all of your non-standard devices.

In follow up to my teammate Marc’s post last week around OPC UA and network traffic, this week I’m going to explore firewall ports in more detail. My goal is to help you understand where IT is coming from when they get concerned about any open inbound ports on firewalls. There is more to it than the obvious which is why they ask a lot of questions. This is especially true when one is talking about a connection that is coming from outside the plant firewall, but also even when it’s a port between a business and a production network.

Through understanding more, you’ll be able to have collaborative discussions with your IT team, where you can weigh the risks with IT as your partner, look for options that address the risks, and accomplish the movement of data required to run your business in ways that address your application-specific security concerns.

The adoption of OPC UA technology continues to grow more with each passing year.  And for good reason.  OPC UA provides a means to encrypt data as it is transferred between client and server that other client interface options simply do not. But when it comes time to have that discussion with your IT department around whether they are going to let you run OPC UA inside the firewall on a network, they likely will have concerns centered around common IT concerns in networks. 

Continuing our Tech Support Corner blog series, this post covers some common concerns that our support engineers have encountered from process engineers collaborating with their IT department about OPC UA client's and servers running on their network and the factors to consider in those discussions. 

As you may already be aware, the Cogent DataHub has a wide range of flexible connectivity options between different data sources such as MQTT, OPC UA, OPC DA, ODBC, DDE and so much more.  MQTT client and broker functionality in particular allow DataHub to integrate MQTT data sources with HMI, SCADA, MES, historian and other systems that don't natively support MQTT.

In this next installment of our Cogent DataHub Virtual Training series, we will cover step-by-step how to easily connect 3rd party MQTT clients to the DataHub MQTT broker and convert their data for access by your own systems with OPC UA or OPC DA client capabilities.

Access to various industrial data via RESTful web services is increasingly becoming necessary in this era of inter-connectivity and big data. From sources such as devices with self-hosted web services to relevant market data such as weather information and pricing for commodities and energy, there is a host of relevant data to be integrated from such RESTful web services.

In this video training blog post, we will cover step-by-step how to easily connect to and consume data from RESTful web services and then push that data to OPC and SQL systems with the OPC Router.