Software Toolbox Technical Blog

Your organization has a custom developed application that performs important tasks, and you need to provide access to that software from an HMI, SCADA, Historian, MES, or other system acting as an OPC UA Client. Adding an OPC UA server interface to a custom application that either you've developed or that you've taken over from someone else can be a daunting task. This is especially true if you're unfamiliar with the low-level details of the OPC UA specification.

Accelerate OPC UA Server Development with the OPC Wizard Toolkit

The OPC Wizard UA Server Development Toolkit addresses this reality head-on by providing a rapid development framework that handles the underlying OPC UA nuts and bolts for you. In a recent webinar we covered how to add an OPC UA Server interface to a custom .NET software application using OPC Wizard, without having to become an “OPC wizard” yourself.

Rather than spending hours on end diving into the specifications and debugging protocol details, you can utilize simple read, write, and subscribe methods, resulting in less engineering time and faster ROI.

Since 2016, LGH File Inspector has been the trusted tool for AVEVA™ InTouch HMI users who need quick, reliable access to their historical data. Whether it’s pulling files from network drives, automating queries with batch files, or setting up scheduled reports, the Software Toolbox team has helped users integrate LGH File Inspector into a wide range of solutions.

In this post, I have collected and summarized tools and learning material to ease your experience in applying LGH File Inspector and help you get started quickly. Towards the end you will find the highlights of the webinar I hosted covering the new features of LGH File Inspector Version 4, that addressed several issues users previously faced.

The TOP Server^® from Software Toolbox and KEPServerEX^® from the Kepware division of PTC^® are well known connectivity solutions for extracting industrial automation data from PLCs and other devices, and integrating that data with virtually any HMI, SCADA, MES, Historian, or database on the market. These products have a global installed base serving sophisticated users across every industry imaginable.

As part of our ongoing Summer of IoT Blog Series, this week we will continue to review the exciting new release of Cogent DataHub Version 11. In a previous post, Cogent DataHub V11 Features to Be Excited About, we covered how Version 11 introduced significant updates, including enhancements to the OPC DA Client Connections and User Interface. In this post, we will deep dive into features aimed at enhancing user experience, increasing application flexibility, increasing configuration scalability, and reducing troubleshooting time.

Originally developed by the American Heating Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers, BACnet (short for Building Automation and Control Network) is a communications protocol primarily used in building automation systems to control the data exchange between different devices and components. If you're reading this, you’re likely familiar with the building automation and control industry and might have a BACnet controller being used in your industrial process.

The TOP Server OPC server is known for its ability to collect real-time data from a wide range of devices, using off-the-shelf industry standard protocols. However, challenges arise when not all devices can consistently share data in real-time due to limitations in connectivity mediums or networks. This is particularly evident in critical SCADA-heavy industries like Power & Utilities, Renewable Energy, Oil & Gas and Water/Wastewater, where precise control of polling is crucial due to their limited bandwidth availability. With traditional cyclic polling, for example "once an hour", you can end up with high bandwidth utilization at the top of an hour and the communications link being idle the rest of the time. Rather than do that, it's better to spread that usage out over the full hour.

The TOP Server Scheduler Plug-In is used to accomplish this spreading out of polling. With it, users can create a customized polling schedule for these devices for any TOP Server driver, which in turn optimizes communications between your SCADA, HMI, MES, or Historian and devices in the field. This eliminates the need to rely on your client applications or direct device configurations to achieve reliable collection crucial operational data from field devices.

Cogent DataHub enables users to integrate diverse data sources quickly and efficiently within their industrial automation ecosystems. By providing multiple ways to consume, organize, and deliver data, handling multiple inputs is a strong suit of DataHub.

CSV import functionalities are available for a variety of plug-ins including OPC DA & UA Clients, MQTT Client, External & Local Historians, Bridging, and Modbus. In this blog, we'll delve into the format and import options of OPC UA items specifically tailored for DataHub's OPC UA Client configuration, but the concept is the same for all CSV imports in DataHub.

Have you ever been confused on the difference between Modbus offsets and addresses? I’m sure you may have configured different Modbus devices from different manufacturers who follow different documentation standards, especially for memory mapping. As we all know, that can certainly increase implementation time. In this blog post, we are going to dive into how offsets and addresses compare and differ to hopefully provide a better understanding, cutting down that configuration time when using TOP Server. Before we start comparing offsets and addressing, let’s first get an understanding of what both are.