Software Toolbox Technical Blog

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If you’re reading this blog, you likely need a way to collect data from some random device in your process – something like a barcode reader or a weigh scale or an RFID system or some other device.  These are the types of device that don’t typically yield favorable results when you type “OPC Server for xyz” into a Google search.

In this blog post, I'll discuss the device manufacturer documentation that is typically provided for such devices and what some of the key information is you'll be looking for - including examples of how a good protocol document will present such information.

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This is Part 6 of our “25 Things to Consider when Choosing an OPC Tunnel” series - Configuring a tunneler should be quick and easy.

How easy does the tunneler vendor make it to get started with their solution?  It's important to consider what resources the vendor has made available to you to assist with setup and configuration.  Resources such as videos, FAQs and technical support could mean the difference between your setup taking only minutes to that same setup taking hours or even days.

This blog post will outline some of the expectations you should have from a good tunnel vendor with respect to the resources they can provide to make your experience as user-friendly as possible, both now and in the future.

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This is Part 5 of our “25 Things to Consider when Choosing an OPC Tunnel” series. Can your tunneler do more than just tunnel?

Many OPC tunnels out there are just that—an OPC tunnel and nothing more. What if you need to perform another operation with the data besides tunneling it?  In most cases, you'd be stuck introducing an additional piece of software to handle any other operations.

This blog post will outline some of the additional functions you might need from a tunneler and why having a single application is the best architecture.

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This is Part 4 of our “25 Things to Consider when Choosing an OPC Tunnel” series. Performance matters when choosing a tunneler.

Performance is always an important consideration when choosing the best tunneler.  It is even more important if one or more of the following is true:

• You need to transfer a lot of data very fast.
• You are using networks with limited bandwidth.
• You are using cellular or satellite networks that charge based on the amount of data used.

This blog post will cover some important aspects to consider when evaluating different tunneling solutions, their methods and the resulting performance relative to such variables.

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This is Part 3 of our “25 Things to Consider when Choosing an OPC Tunnel” series. What is the customer experience when contacting the supplier’s technical support?

Technical support is an area where users shouldn’t underestimate the importance.  This blog will cover some important aspects of technical support to consider when evaluating different tunneling suppliers.

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This is Part 2 of our “25 Things to Consider when Choosing an OPC Tunnel” series. How does the tunneler handle security?

Security is an integral consideration when choosing a tunneling solution.  This blog will cover some important aspects of security to consider when evaluating different tunneling solutions.

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This is Part 1 of our “25 Things to Consider when Choosing an OPC Tunnel” series. When choosing software applications to handle the tunneling of your data, there is more to making the right choice than simply a checkbox on a product datasheet that says “tunneling”. This series will introduce you to the considerations that will help you make an informed choice and choose the most effective tunneler for your specific application requirements. If you are unfamiliar with what an OPC tunnel is, please read our post “ Tunneling OPC Data – What Is It?”

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In today’s industrial operations environments, OPC is the standard of choice for interoperability between software and hardware in the multi-vendor real world. Major software applications that need data from other systems have implemented OPC client interfaces. Those same applications if they need to share data with others, have also implemented OPC server interfaces. Similarly, the OPC standard has allowed software vendors to write applications, called OPC Servers, which make it easy to access real-time data from any piece of equipment offered by any vendor.

Since 1995, the OPC Foundation estimates that over 30 million OPC server and client software applications have been deployed in operations management from the shop floor up through production and operations management layers. The result is that data from the factory floor is more available now than ever before.

The greater availability of data has generated greater demand for access to the data across a wider number of locations and users. However, getting that data from the factory floor to your systems and staff to monitor and act upon it has challenges.