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OPC Systems.NET by Open Automation SoftwareProduct Review
Overall Rating:
By Naeem Ismat
OverviewOPC Systems.NET from Open Automation Software is the latest technology solution for manufacturing and OEM customers looking for an open platform HMI and data acquisition application. It is the first Smart Client SCADA and first AJAX enabled Web SCADA HMI in industry with fully managed components. OPC Systems.NET is a dot net based SCADA System that provides process information for plant managers, supervisors, and operators in the form of 3D and 2D fancy displays, archived data, alarms, messages, reports and statistical charts. The application gets its data from OPC servers that interface with process hardware such as controllers, sensors, motors, switches, and other devices required when manufacturing products. This product works like a typical SCADA system. It reads process information from devices and saves it in one or more process databases residing on a SCADA server.
Brief SummaryOPC Systems.NET is a suite of .NET products for HMI/SCADA applications. At first glance, OPC Systems.NET may appear like it is non-industrial software due to dot net in the name. Application and Control Engineers shouldn’t be fooled by this, thinking that it may be tricky to understand the dot net concept given the traditional HMI style products. Like any other SCADA application, OPC Systems.NET is easy to set-up and is very user friendly. Building a customized solution is not very complicated due to the component environment. For the most part, it doesn’t involve any coding for trending, alarming and reporting. But if you want to create a client side interface and other client application to interface with the data, you can use the free .Net Framework environment which is available from the Microsoft website. There are easy to follow, step-by-step instructions provided to write your own features and you are very conveniently guided through the entire process which includes examples.
TechnologyOPC Systems.NET, is based on Microsoft .NET technology, as its name indicates. This software uses AJAX enabled components for real-time update without the need for a page refresh. AJAX stands for “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML” and is not very common in Industry yet but quite popular in other web development techniques used for creating interactive applications. We all know the pains of using DCOM for the communication between OPC clients and servers. It is not bad if the server and client exist on the same network otherwise there have been known to be configuration and connectivity issues. In addition, DCOM has a few drawbacks if a server and client are connected via a Wide Area Network (WAN). The problem is multiplied if this is done across the internet. DCOM relies on a proprietary binary protocol which is not supported by object models, also it hinders interoperability across platforms. In case of firewalls, configuration is harder. .NET Remoting eliminates the difficulties of DCOM by supporting different transport protocol formats and communication protocols. This allows .NET Remoting to adapt to the network environment in which it is being used. OCPSystems.Net primarily uses a customized component built in .Net framework. The upside of using the .Net environment is that it takes advantage of Windows .Net API (.Net Remoting) for the communication instead of the OPC communication protocol. This software uses Window components only to talk with Window servers, not outside.
Software DemonstrationI love the demo Open Automation System’s offers and it definitely has wow factor. In just 3 to 4 minutes the test computer in my lab was working as a HMI SCADA View node (client node) and, yes, I did it on the first attempt; one of the great benefits of dot net technology. If you want to see a demo of a Smart Client of OPC Systems.NET, you’ll want to check out this link: http://www.opcsystemsserver.com/SmartClientExample20/SmartClientExample20.htm
Setup and InstallationThe installation and basic setup of OPC Systems.NET is straight forward. Installation worked as expected without any surprises. I installed the product on a Windows 2K, Windows XP and Windows Vista operating system. One of benefits of the application (which is developed with 100% managed components) is that it can be executed on remote systems without installing the application itself on the remote systems. This makes application updates extremely simple and provides a better user experience than other traditional SCADA offering.
The Interface
OPC Systems.NET has a very glamorous SCADA system interface. It offers a fancy and attractive operator display and alarm charts. Most systems support 3D rendering and Open Automation Systems recommends taking advantage of the hardware acceleration. Unbeatable chart graphics with real time and historical data trending, both 3D and 2D are really impressive and very cool. The charts have all required features and many more.
Using Alarms and Trends are very straight forward and easy to use for automation professionals. If users are to build good-looking operator interfaces (HMI) with tanks, motors, values, data-links and animations, they will need to know their way around Visual Studio.NET 2003 or 2005. They might need to do scripting with available components if they are building a sophisticated application. Frankly, this will not very easy for most of engineers or technicians working on the plant floor. As a result, there may be more dependency on Systems Integrators to make necessary changes, even small changes. However, OPC Systems.NET makes it easy for industrial (non-IT) guys to graphically replicate the plant on the computer screen. Trends and Alarms are really cool and offer all necessary features. Very easy to setup and configure and can be used directly in OPC Systems HMI environment.
Smart ClientsI consider the Smart Client to be a big pro of this product, especially when big names on the market still offer Thick and/or Thin Client solutions. A smart client is a standard Windows application that takes advantage of Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2005 quick deployment feature to place a Thick Client into a virtual directory. Users can then browse to that virtual directory and run the application from their own machine. Upgrading a smart client is easily done through a browser. If the application has been upgraded to a newer version of the .net framework, traditional client applications will need to upgrade as well. However, smart clients can include install sets within the deployment so that if a target node doesn’t have it, it will install it automatically. Thick clients are not a good choice for new projects as they are tough to deploy, have heavy foot prints and can have .dll (Dynamic Link Library) issues. It costs a lot of money to both deploy and upgrade thick clients as System Integrators have to configure each individual station on each site which increases deployment and upgrade costs. On the other hand “Thin Clients” are known for poor user experience, and network dependencies have been a big issue. The beauty of a smart client is it eliminates the cons of thick and thin clients while offering the pros’ of both – along with extra benefits like a rich user experience, high developer productivity, broad reach, easy deployment and upgrade, easy change management and device adaptability. However, if a customer still wants to use a thick client solution, OPC System.Net also offers an ASP.NET component.
Additional Features & ModulesAlthough Open Automation Systems provides all the main tools required for designing and commissioning a successful HMI/SCADA application, it does not offer some of the features other competitors are offering. However, the robustness of OPC Systems.NET enables users to program any specific features they require.
Failover and RedundancyUnlike similar tools, there is no direct failover or redundancy solution. Redundancy can be achieved using Visual Studio to program a network name, IP address or registered domain name like www.somedomain.com so the user can quickly switch from one service to another using a programmatic call. The client application built by the user needs to point to systems that have a real time service running on them. Still, I have concerns about when a failed server recovers - who will take control? What will happen with IO address? How will alarm synchronization be done? When both nodes are live, will both poll data? Managing all this programmatically could be quite challenge.
Database BackendThe real-time database is a set of propriety objects. OPC Systems.NET uses a Windows service to communicate with the OPC service locally – this way you never have to deal with remote DCOM. The real-time database uses a set of tags that can store data from OPC servers, SQL clients, OPC clients, values from your .NET application, MSSQL, Oracle or Access database. The database can be a central repository that can be used by many clients globally via the internet. This feature makes it easier to share the data between remote locations.
Data Logging and HistorianConfiguring the data logging within OPC Systems.NET is quite easy. I like the local store and forward features within the product. In each OPC System, the service buffers all data locally until it can successfully broadcast to the remote components and services. So if any node is not available, users would not lose any data. Today’s customers recognize the difference between plant floor data and business, or enterprise, data. Many people believe, me included, that a relational database is rarely the best approach when dealing with plant floor data. In a typical manufacturing environment, real-time operations require very fast data collection for optimal analysis. Most plant-wide historians perform 10 to 20 times faster read/writes when compared to a relational database, not to mention that historians can offer 1 millisecond resolution for true real-time data. Another important reason proprietary relational type historians are so popular on the plant floor is they are optimized for “time series” data – while a relational database is built to manage relationships or transactional data.
ReportingOPC Systems.NET includes reporting solutions. Many big vendors in today’s market don’t have a reasonable reporting solution and so customers rely on 3rd party options. In my testing, I played with the included Report Designer and Viewer. It worked as expected. The report wizard walked me through all the necessary steps required to build reports.
SecurityIt is hard to believe that despite all of the great features OPC Systems.Net has, it is lacking user level security. This is a feature that may be added in the future using Microsoft’s latest security with encryption but for now there is no user level security. This surprised me because similar products have incorporated some sort of security. Security has been a top priority for many industries, particularly since 9-11. Pharmaceutical and water / waste water treatment plants are now looking at using electronic signatures for users. It should be noted that OPC System.NET can control the remote access of nodes/computers using .net communication.
Technical Support and Help DocumentationOpen Automation Systems provides a training guide in, Adobe’s PDF format, as a main help file. It is a well written, step by step guide with pictorial help explaining the steps to successfully develop and deploy an application. It is very much like quick start-up guide. Informative and well written help files are very useful during application development for system integrators and end users, which reduces the need to contact technical support. While testing the help features of this product in my lab, I found that context-sensitive help did not work well; Pressing F1 at “Alarm Priority” and “Time Delay in Configure Tags” window opened the complete help file rather than providing specific information. However, it did work for “Trend Point” and “OPC Item”. Similarly, while using the help feature to learn about calculations, it returned help for the OPC Item definition. So suffice to say that it does not work all the time. A bit more focus on context-sensitive help (F1 on specific word/item) might be a good feature that can be incorporated in a future release. Regardless, the product help feature certainly gets a novice user going in the right direction. Free support is available to all customers via a toll-free number or email.
ConclusionA suitable SCADA system plays an integral part in industrial automation strategy; it is the back bone of the Controls Network Layer on plant floor. Whether you want to control your plant from your computer, collect historical values or generate shift reports, SCADA software enables you fulfill your specific industrial control and automation needs.
Sure, you can plunk down a lot of cash for any HMI SCADA application with more features, but this software delivers the goods at a reasonable cost. This OPC based software has the correct SCADA recipe built on latest technology with all the necessities, including a tool for operator interfaces, trends, alarms, web based interfaces, web base trend, web based alarms, database, report, recipe and Smart Device applications for your PDAs.
For the purposes of this review, the following product versions were used:
2.5.20071.231 (Report Designer) 2.0.0.1 (OPC System HMI)
Vendor Recommended Specifications for OPC Systems.NET:
Required Processor (CPU) Class: Sufficient to run operating system Required Processor Speed: Sufficient to run operating system Required Disk Space: 334 MB Required Memory (RAM): 512 MB Recommended Memory (RAM): 1-2 Gig
Software Specifications: The following computer hardware was used for the review of OPC Systems.NET:
OS: Window Vista Ultimate Processor: AMD Athlone 2.11 GH RAM: 3GB
Computer 2: This review is published by the OPC Training Institute. Copyright ©2007 OPC Training Institute (OPCTI). All rights reserved. The information contained in this review is proprietary to OPCTI. No part of this review may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, translated, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from OPCTI. |
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OPC Systems.NET is OPC Compliant Certified and has passed the OPC Foundation’s OPC Analyzer at the 2007 North American Interop for both Data Access 2.0x and 3.0 to receive the Self Tested Logo.
All necessary SCADA application features, built on the latest technology combined with a very fancy work environment capable of handling huge files and a well-designed interface make OPC Systems.NET the go-to program for industry professionals. Overall, I think this product offers a lot for the price. Once more features like user/tag level security and built-in redundancy solutions are added, OPC System.NET will be a good fit in almost all industries. This software already has noticeable world-wide installations in a short time having a good presence in China, Australia, Europe and North America.
