Software Toolbox Technical Blog

One of TOP Server's key differentiators is the wide variety of different drivers/protocols to choose from for communicating with the multitude of device makes and models out there in the automation world.  TOP Server has always had all of the major manufacturers like Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Omron, Mitsubishi and many more conveniently organized into driver suites.

So what about specific industries such as Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Power & Utilities, Building Automation or IT & Infrastructure?  TOP Server also has convenient vertical industry suites, as well.

Continuing our series about specific industries covered by TOP Server, keep reading to find out specific details about the TOP Server Power & Utilities Suite including several great features that should make your lives easier in TOP Server V6.0.

At its core, a communication protocol is just the ‘language’ that devices speak, right? Just a collection of rules that govern how components of a system are going to interact with each other, and what the capabilities of the system might look like.

In this post, I will discuss why you should bother learning anything about communication protocols in the first place. I will discuss the value of knowing what a communication standard is and why some people (myself included) commit so much time to learning them.

One of TOP Server's key differentiators is the wide variety of different drivers/protocols to choose from for communicating with the multitude of device makes and models out there in the automation world.  Existing users can tell you that all of the major manufacturers such as Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Omron, Mitsubishi and so many more are conveniently organized into driver suites.

But what about specific industries such as Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Power & Utilities, Building Automation or IT & Infrastructure?  TOP Server has convenient vertical industry suites, as well.

Continuing our series about specific industries covered by TOP Server, keep reading to find out specific details about the TOP Server Building Automation Suite including several great features that should make your lives easier in TOP Server V6.0.

The latest OmniServer released in October – OmniServer V3.0 - includes enhancements to licensing and support management, as well as, several usability enhancements to the configuration interface including a new topic wizard and updated Configuration User Interface.

This second blog post in a series about specific V3.0 features will detail one of those usability enhancements - the new Topic Wizard - designed to increase your efficiency and the ease of getting started when you're working with OmniServer to integrate your non-standard process devices.

With TOP Server, one of the key strengths is the wide variety of different drivers/protocols to choose from for communicating with the multitude of device makes and models out there in the automation world.  There are, of course, all of the major manufacturers such as Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Omron, Mitsubishi and so many more organized into driver suites.

But what about specific industries such as Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Power & Utilities, Building Automation or IT & Infrastructure?  TOP Server has vertical industry suites, as well.

Continuing our series about specific industries covered by TOP Server, keep reading to find out specific details about the TOP Server IT & Infrastructure Suite including several great features that should make your lives easier in TOP Server V6.0.

You may have heard about the latest OmniServer released in October – OmniServer V3.0.  OmniServer V3.0 includes enhancements to licensing and support management, as well as, several usability enhancements to the configuration interface including a new topic wizard and updated Configuration User Interface.

The first in a series about specific V3.0 features - this blog post will detail one of those usability enhancements - the updated Configuration UI - designed to increase your efficiency and the ease of finding settings and components when you're working with OmniServer to integrate your non-standard process devices.

I'm sure you've likely at least heard about the latest TOP Server V6.0 released recently.  Aside from the great server-level enhancements to the user interface and more, there are several nice upgrades that should prove especially useful to our users in the oil and gas industry working with TOP Server.

Keep reading to find out more specific details about several great features that should make your lives easier in TOP Server V6.0.

Complications of Domains, Workgroups, & Mixed Windows Versions & Solutions

In the Operations Technology or OT world that most of our users live in, it’s normal to have multiple versions of Windows and systems that may not always be setup consistently but we have to make it all work anyway.   Connecting OPC clients and servers when the Windows computers are not on the same version, not in an Active Directory or, using older terminology, a domain, and having everything work well takes skill, and keeping it secure involves a lot of details.

In this blog post, our team asked me to explore with you the details involved to assist you with better understanding Windows Security and to converse more productively with your IT Team.  I’ll also share how you can learn more about how to make things easier on yourself through the use of OPC UA or with Tunneling.