Software Toolbox Technical Blog

Modbus is one of the most widely used protocols around the world, implemented as the communications protocol by many different vendors for integration with other systems. If you're reading this, you likely have at least one Modbus device (whether it's a PLC, RTU or other device) being used in your industrial process and need to integrate data from that process.

In this video blog, I'll show you how to get started using our Modbus TCP Ethernet driver and it's flexible settings to connect and gather real-time process data from pretty much any Modbus Ethernet capable device for HMI, SCADA, MES and other client applications.

Allen-Bradley's Logix family of PLCs and PACs is one of the most popular controllers across many automated industries. If you're reading this, you likely have at least one Logix controller being used in your industrial process and need to integrate data from that process.

In this video blog, I'll show you how to get started using our ControlLogix Ethernet driver to connect and gather real-time process data from Logix controllers for HMI, SCADA, MES and other client applications.

Our team often gets questions about the extent to which our products can be used. It’s important to differentiate between technical versus practical limits when discussing what is and is not possible.

Continuing our Tech Support Corner blog series, I will be providing some insights into how many channels, devices, and tags it is technically possible to set up in TOP Server while also highlighting some practical rules of thumb to observe to ensure the best performance.

If you're a TOP Server user, you're likely accustomed to connecting to a device configured in TOP Server that is sending real-time data through one of its many available drivers. But did you know you can setup devices in a "Simulated" mode for a variety of client testing purposes when a live device isn't available?

Continuing our Tech Support Corner blog series, this post covers how the "Simulated" device property works, why you might implement it into your testing and a brief walkthrough on connecting a variety of client applications to a simulated device in TOP Server.

Many AVEVA™ users are probably already aware of the native connectivity options they have for interfacing with different systems. Many AVEVA users have also turned to TOP Server over the years, both for standardizing device connectivity in a single server and for drivers/protocols not available as native AVEVA options.

Those users of AVEVA System Platform have traditionally connected to TOP Server directly via either its native SuiteLink interface or OPC DA Classic. AVEVA's OI Gateway provides those users the additional option of connecting to OPC UA data sources, for easier and more secure remote connections to such data sources.

In this blog post, we will cover the basic steps to connect AVEVA System Platform to TOP Server via OPC UA, expanding device connectivity options for AVEVA users.

If you are reading this post, chances are you have configured your TOP Server project and are communicating with your devices successfully. Perhaps, you also have a client application successfully writing and/or reading to or from TOP Server. Did you know all TOP Server drivers provide several different Scan Modes for controlling how client requests affect the polling frequency for your configured devices? In fact, these Scan Modes apply to all client connection types including OPC UA, OPC DA and AVEVA SuiteLink.

Continuing our Tech Support Corner blog series, this short post will discuss the five Scan Mode options available in the TOP Server Device Properties. Each Scan Mode serves a different purpose depending on your specific scenario. We will explain each mode, giving you a better understanding of which mode is best for your situation. Correctly setting the Scan Mode to match the capabilities of your device will help to provide optimal performance for your automation system.

Are you an AVEVA™ System Platform user but you also have some other client or system (HMI, SCADA, other) and need that system to access data from System Platform?  It's a use case that sometimes occurs if your company is acquired another company and a non-AVEVA HMI/SCADA came as part of the assets.  Or perhaps your company merged with another and now your AVEVA system is expected to integrate with other systems.  Your options for sharing data largely depend on what software interfaces these "other systems" support.

In this blog post, I'll discuss how to share your AVEVA System Platform 2020 (or newer) data via OPC UA (without using OI Gateway) using the TOP Server OPC UA Client driver for situations where you have another non-OPC UA capable client application that needs access to process data in your AVEVA system.

If you're reading this, you likely have at least one Siemens S7 PLC on your network being used in your industrial process and need to integrate data from that process. And, like many of our Siemens users, you're likely interested in accessing symbolic references (versus the traditional Siemens variable addresses) supported by newer S7 controllers.

In this video blog, I'll show you how to get started using our Siemens S7 Plus Ethernet driver (part of the Siemens S7 Plus Suite) to connect and gather real-time process data from Siemens S7-1500 and S7-1200 PLC symbolic variables/tagnames for AVEVA Wonderware applications.