Software Toolbox Technical Blog

This post is part of our Summer of IoT blog series, where we spotlight practical tools that solve real-world industrial challenges. In this installment, we dive into how DataCaster helps teams visualize key metrics, quickly, clearly, and without the hassle.

For engineers and operations teams, getting the right data in front of the right people at the right time can make all the difference. But too often, valuable metrics like uptime, downtime, production rates, and OEE stay buried in PLCs, SCADA systems, or databases, while teams rely on outdated methods like whiteboards, spreadsheets, or even handwritten notes.

If you’ve ever said, “I just want to see this data on a screen over there so the team can act on it,” there’s now a straightforward way to do just that, without writing code, managing a PC, or spinning up an IT project.

Welcome back to the Summer of IoT Blog Series. In this blog we’ll explore how Cogent DataHub’s External Historian and built-in Store and Forward features ensure efficient data flow without risking network security at the plant or enterprise level.

As organizations work toward Industry 4.0 and digital transformation, ensuring secure and reliable OT/IT convergence is essential for breaking down data silos and creating cohesion between your business systems. IoT devices provide real-time data and connectivity to transform traditional industrial operations. Complementing this, historians serve as centralized data repositories that store and organize time-series data from IoT devices and other sources. Together, the data from both fuels advanced analytics, automation, and smart decision-making across the enterprise.

Welcome to the Summer of IoT! As part of our Summer of IoT blog series, we spotlight practical ways to simplify and accelerate your digital transformation journey. In this second post, we’re diving into how OPC Router Docker Containers make industrial connectivity more flexible and easier to manage. Whether you're optimizing existing systems or exploring new technologies, our goal is to give you real-world strategies to make IoT adoption smarter and more efficient.

In industrial automation, efficiency is everything—whether it’s edge applications on the plant floor or in the solutions that keep operations running smoothly. For many, managing OPC Router installations has always meant dealing with servers, complex configurations, and time-consuming updates. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In this blog, I’ll introduce you to OPC Router Docker Containers: what they are, why they matter, and how they can help you streamline your industrial connectivity with less hassle and greater flexibility. We hope you’ll learn:

• What OPC Router in a Docker container means
• Why it can save you time, simplify updates, and improve scalability
• How it fits into modern, flexible industrial architectures

Time is money. Let’s help you save both.

Welcome to the launch of Software Toolbox’s Summer of IoT blog series for 2025.

In the coming posts, we’ll explore how our solutions support the evolving world of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and more importantly, how they can help you advance your Industry 4.0 and digital transformation goals with practical, proven tools. We begin the series by exploring Unified Namespace (UNS), what it means, why it matters, and how Software Toolbox makes it practical for real-world industrial environments.

Unified Namespace, Real Results: Lessons and Tools that Deliver

In today’s fast-evolving industrial landscape, seamless connectivity and data integration are critical for operational success. At Software Toolbox, our solutions are designed to empower businesses by enabling UNS connectivity, bridging the gap between diverse systems and helping with efficiency, interoperability, and scalability.

Personally, as a presenter and attendee of ProveIt! 2025 and an attendee of 4.0 Solutions’ Edge Integration to UNS Workshop, I have had a lot of exposure to the topic of UNS this year. In this blog post, I will share not only what I have learned surrounding the topic, but how Software Toolbox’s solutions fit into the picture.

If you've been keeping up with our Summer of IoT blog series, you've likely noticed our in-depth exploration of Software Toolbox solutions and the use of MQTT for IoT applications. In this latest installment of the series, our spotlight shifts to the OPC Data Client development toolkit. When speaking about IoT, OPC UA is a major player, which is why our focus for this post will be to delve into the integration of OPC UA PubSub (publish/subscribe) and how it leverages MQTT as its conduit for message transmission.

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.

As OPC UA has grown in it's adoption, more device vendors are implementing OPC UA interfaces on their PLCs and other devices to increase interoperability. OPC UA has been proven to be an adaptable specification with its ability to accommodate industry-specific nuances in data formats, leading to implementations that expose information in ways that make practical sense.

As a middleware solution, OPC Router implements a variety of OPC UA features outside of the generic Data Access profile to cast a wide net for devices it can support.

Continuing our Summer of IoT blog series, we'll delve into the exciting new release of Cogent DataHub V11. For those that may have missed our previous post on Cogent DataHub V11 Features to Be Excited About, the entirely revamped security profile provides a Secure out-of-the-box experience for V11 users that opens a variety of customized options. Today we take a deep dive into a part of the security improvements, and next month we’ll take a second deep dive into security.