OPC DataHub

Engage real-time data with confidence

OPC DataHub is an affordable, proven, OPC Interoperability Tested Solution to a Variety of Enterprise Wide Manufacturing Data Management Challenges. OPC DataHub software enables you to collect data from different sources and make it available to the people who need to use it. The DataHub has many different configuration possibilities and features.

OPC DataHub

Features

OPC to Excel - The OPC DataHub makes it easy to get OPC data into Microsoft Excel. No special plug-ins are required. Simply drag and drop data into your spreadsheet. Also works with any other DDE enabled Windows application.

OPC Data Logging - modern process integration often calls for factory data to be stored in a database, such as Access, SQL Server, Oracle or MySQL. The OPC DataHub provides a unique configuration interface that makes this task both quick and completely open to customization.

OPC Tunneling - allows connection of an OPC Server to an OPC Client over a network, using TCP/IP as the transport protocol. This means you can avoid the problems associated with configuring DCOM to work over a network. You also eliminate the long DCOM timeouts that can effectively shutdown your application.

OPC to Web - installed with the DataHub is a web application called the Web Data Viewer. This Streaming AJAX application allows you to display data from any DataHub source, in a web browser, without having to write any code, or configure any web server settings.

OPC Bridging - allows connection of an OPC Server to another OPC Server on the same computer. This is a powerful way to integrate systems that don't normally talk to each other.

OPC Aggregation - allows collection of data from several OPC servers into one common point of access. The OPC DataHub supports multiple simultaneous connections, which means aggregating data is as simple as connecting multiple OPC Servers.

OPC Scripting - the OPC DataHub comes with a powerful built-in programming language called Gamma. DataHub scripting also contains support for Windows GUI development and ODBC support to connect to relational databases like Oracle and SQL Server. The scripting environment includes an extensive ODBC library, which enables any OPC Server to send and receive data with relational database applications such as Access, MS SQL Server, Oracle and any other ODBC compliant database. The OPC DataHub provides a gateway for customers to make plant data available on corporate networks, so it can be used in Management Execution Systems (MES) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

OPC to Linux Systems - the OPC DataHub can connect to any OPC Server and make this information available to other DataHub programs over a network connection. We call this a 'mirror' connection because the data is mirrored between the two DataHub programs. The OPC DataHub in Windows is designed to mirror data with the Cascade DataHub in Linux.

OPC to Email and SMS Text Messages - the OPC DataHub can be configured to send email and SMS text messages whenever an alarm condition, or specified timer event occurs. The messages are completely customizable and can include embedded values for any point in the DataHub, including data from your OPC servers, ODBC databases or Excel spreadsheets. You can easily create simple plain text messages or design more elaborate emails with full HTML formatting.

System Performance Monitor - now you can monitor the performance of computers anywhere in your organization using the OPC DataHub. You decide what system parameters to monitor, such as CPU usage, free disk space, available memory and whether critical processes are still running. This information is collected by the DataHub as regular point data that can be shared across a network or the Internet in real-time.

System Performance Monitoring using OPC DataHub

OPC to Linux and QNX

Embedded systems can access Windows data

Need to access OPC and DDE data in Linux and QNX? How about making real-time data from your embedded systems available to Windows based applications? The OPC DataHub makes this easy, by allowing you to connect directly to its Linux and QNX counterpart: the Cascade DataHub. Mirroring data between these two DataHub programs gives you complete and reliable data integration on each platform.

Why use the OPC DataHub to integrate data from Windows, Linux and QNX?
1. Fully integrate data from OPC servers into your embedded Linux and QNX systems.
2. Connect your embedded systems to multiple OPC servers to aggregate data into a common data set.
3. Linux and QNX systems access data from the Cascade DataHub using simple API function calls.
4. Mirroring network connections automatically detect and recover after a network break.
5. Point-to-point bridging in the OPC DataHub helps you easily associate points in the OPC Server with points in your Linux and QNX applications.
6. DataHub scripting allows you to modify data as it passes through the DataHub.
7. The mirroring connection is fully bi-directional, so you can read and write data in either direction.

Data on the Web

Displaying data on the web means different things to different people. That's why the OPC DataHub offers a number of options, starting with web pages that require no programming whatsoever, all the way to high speed we applications using the latest Java and AJAX technologies.

Web Technologies:
1. ASP
2. AJAX
3. Java

Plaforms:
1. Web Browser
2. Mobile Browser

Now installed with the DataHub is a web application called the DataHub Browser. This Streaming AJAX application allows you to display data from any DataHub source, in a web browser, without having to write any code, or configure any web server settings.

Shortcuts

Need Integration Help?

At Easymatics we understand the complexities of integrating many disparate systems. Our Engineers are skilled at all levels of integration, from configuration to custom software design. We have many past credentials in this area, and all our engineers have high levels of networking and process expertise.

We can assist you with your integration, mainly this work commences with a requirements specification. From the specification we can schedule the project, or train your own people.

Tunnelling of Process Data

In today’s process control environment, OPC is becoming the protocol of choice. There are many OPC Servers offered by companies specializing in connectivity and PLC, DCS and equipment manufacturers often offer an OPC server interface as part of their product suite. This allows software vendors to create OPC client applications that easily access real-time data from any piece of equipment offered by any vendor. Data from the factory floor is more available now than ever before. Accessing this data often means connecting over corporate or insecure public networks.

But networking OPC is challenging. The networking protocol for OPC is DCOM, which was not designed for industrial real-time data transfer. DCOM is difficult to configure, responds poorly to network breaks, and has serious security flaws. Using DCOM between different LANs, such as connecting between manufacturing and corporate LANs, is sometimes impossible to configure. Using OPC over DCOM also requires more network traffic then some networks can handle because of bandwidth limitations or due to the high traffic already on the system. To overcome these limitations, the OPC DataHub offers a “tunnelling” solution, as an alternative to DCOM, to transfer OPC data over a network.

The OPC DataHub provides a secure, reliable, and easy-to-use tunnelling solution with many advanced features.

Bridging Explained

A network bridge connects multiple network segments at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model, and the term layer 2 switch is very often used interchangeably with bridge. Bridges are similar to repeaters or network hubs, devices that connect network segments at the physical layer; however with bridging, traffic from one network is managed rather than simply rebroadcast to adjacent network segments. In Ethernet networks, the term "bridge" formally means a device that behaves according to the IEEE 802.1D standard—this is most often referred to as a network switch in marketing literature. Bridges tend to be more complex than hubs or repeaters due to the fact that bridges are capable of analyzing incoming data packets on a network to determine if the bridge is able to send the given packet to another segment of that same network.

Since bridging takes place at the data link layer of the OSI model, a bridge processes the information from each frame of data it receives. In an Ethernet frame, this provides the MAC address of the frame's source and destination. Bridges use two methods to resolve the network segment that a MAC address belongs to.

1. Transparent bridging
2. Source route bridging

Bridging and Routing are both ways of performing data control, but work through different methods. Bridging takes place at OSI Model Layer 2 (Data-Link Layer) while Routing takes place at the OSI Model Layer 3 (Network Layer). This difference means that a bridge directs frames according to hardware assigned MAC addresses while a router makes its decisions according to arbitrarily assigned IP Addresses. As a result of this, bridges are not concerned with and are unable to distinguish networks while routers can.

When designing a network, you can choose to put multiple segments into one bridged network or to divide it into different networks interconnected by routers. If a host is physically moved from one network area to another in a routed network, it has to get a new IP address; if this system is moved within a bridged network, it doesn't have to reconfigure anything.

Client Settings