Software Toolbox Technical Blog

In the automation and control world you need to know about problems immediately.  If problems are not recognized early enough, they can cause unexpected downtime, damage to machinery or environmental impacts.  In other words, these problems can cost you a lot of money.

Fortunately, these days most of us have 24/7 access to email or texting through their laptops and smart phones which has made receiving alarms in a timely fashion much easier than in the past.

In this third post of our “I Can Do That?” blog series, we’ll cover how to get alerts to problems ASAP and also share some specific use cases for email/SMS notifications using Cogent DataHub.

Do you need to log specific process data to a database or text file based on some predefined variable or condition? We typically refer to this concept as "conditional" or "condition-based" logging.  It sounds simple enough but without a plan, it can be a tricky task to implement.

In this post, I'll introduce you to the considerations involved with conditional data logging and cover how OPC Data Logger can easily be set up to log data based on a variety of conditions without a lot of headaches.

Do you need to directly connect data points or variables in different equipment, processes, or software? This concept is commonly referred to as ‘point-to-point bridging,’ and the DataHub bridging capability allows multiple data sources to communicate with each other in real time.

In this second post of our “I Can Do That?” blog series, we’ll help users like you get the most out of your DataHub by understanding the bridging feature in detail and how this feature can often be combined with other features to accomplish some very powerful automation tasks.

OPC has been around as an industry standard since 1996.  If you’ve been working in the space very long, you have probably heard all the different acronyms thrown around.  If you’re new, well there are different specifications in the OPC software interoperability standards that are used to meet different information integration needs.

In this first post of our “I Can Do That?” blog series, I’ll explore examples of the connections between different OPC standards we hear about from users, ways to address them using OPC Gateway software, and use cases highlighting solutions we’ve seen other users implement successfully.

Do you have a multitude of non-standard devices with unique identifiers such as a Device IDs or Node IDs that must be sent as part of all protocol messages to communicate with each device?  If so, you could certainly accomplish this by hard coding your Device/Node IDs as part of each message in your OmniServer protocol and simply have a separate protocol for each device.

But OmniServer has a better way:  Topic Variables.  In this sixth post in our “OmniServer Did You Know?” blog series, you'll learn how to use Topic Variables to create one flexible protocol that you can use across any number of devices using the same communication protocol.

There are some great new updates now available with TOP Server V6.2.  In case you missed it, I did a high-level post giving you an overview of the four biggest features from the V6.2 release - click here to see that post.

In this post, I'll give you a more detailed review of the updates to the new CODESYS Ethernet driver in TOP Server V6.2.  Used extensively by controller manufacturers when creating custom firmware isn't scalable, CODESYS continues to grow in usage globally. Keep reading to find out more about specific features of the CODESYS Ethernet driver.

You've probably received one of my emails or possibly heard from a colleague about the latest TOP Server released on June 8 – so you may have a general idea of the key new features in the TOP Server V6.2 release.

In this blog, I'll go through the biggest four features released in V6.2 in more detail and how they benefit you as a TOP Server user.

You've potentially already heard about the latest and greatest TOP Server - Version 6.1.  You may have read my blog post about the 6 new features to be most excited about already.

But if you'd like to join me, in the following on-demand video blog, I'll step you through the new features that Wonderware users should care about in TOP Server V6.1 beyond what they are and cover how you can benefit from them, as well as, showing you what you can expect in future releases.