Software Toolbox Technical Blog

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a file format that has become fairly common in the industrial automation industry for storing data or information (including such things as configuration files). But also as one of the most common data formats used by RESTful APIs and web services, which are commonly used for providing a range of useful information including energy prices and weather data.

Sometimes, of course, depending on the application, some or all components of JSON packet might be variable or dynamic in nature, which can make it difficult for off-the-shelf industrial software solutions to properly parse the information from those packets.

In this post, I will cover step-by-step how to leverage the scripting capabilities of the OPC Router to access and parse JSON packets either from a JSON file saved to a specific file directory or from a RESTful web service after which that data can be used with any of the other connectors that OPC Router supports. For this example, we log the data to a SQL database.

So, no, we're not actually taking a rest - we're looking at what REST the acronym means from a practical perspective. But perhaps after reading this, if you're looking to connect to a RESTful API, you can give your mind a rest knowing you have a path forward.

I know the first time I ever heard the term, I had no idea what it meant or how to approach it. Maybe you've been told a certain data source has a REST API for accessing it, but you're not sure where to get started leveraging that API with your control system.

This post will provide a practical explanation of what REST is, how it can be useful to you and how you can take advantage of data provided by RESTful APIs or web services in your operations.

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.

Having ready access to the wide array of industrial data available in an enterprise is increasingly important these days, for a variety of reasons.  With ever-expanding applications for using "big data" towards efficiency initiatives such as digital twins, predictive analytics and predictive maintenance, having the ability to bring all of your industrial data together is essential.

In order to analyze that data, however, the upstream systems performing that analysis need access to the actual data - data that is typically widely dispersed geographically and even departmentally within locations.  One interface that is relatively common for such systems is the ability to act as an HTTP (or REST) client.

This blog post will provide an overview of an easy and secure way to share industrial process data available common OPC UA, OPC DA and SQL database sources with big data and other systems that can act as an HTTP / REST Client using the OPC Router. You'll also have a chance to download our free guide with step-by-step instructions.