Software Toolbox runs TOP Server through the
2002 OPC Interoperability Workshop

As part of our ongoing committment to providing our clients with quality products and support, Software Toolbox once again participated in the OPC Foundation's annual Interoperability Workshop (Interop2002). The purpose of these workshops is to create a technical setting for OPC client and server developers to get together and test their products for interoperability in a networked, DCOM configuration setting. The event is a technical event not a marketing event and is targeted at OPC Server and Client developers.  Developers usually attend with their source code in hand so they can debug any problems on site and retest in the spirit of resolving interoperability issues quickly and improving their products.  As a member of the OPC Foundation, we feel strongly about continued participation in the Interop workshops so that we can continually work to offer our clients the best products and services. 

This year at OPC Interop 2002, Software Toolbox tested 3 major product lines:

• TOP Server I/O Servers - our OPC server solution that offers over 50 different drivers
• OPC Data ActiveX - our OPC Client solution for rapid development of VB and VC++ applications as OPC clients
• Instrumentation ActiveX controls with OPC client capabilities -- released in summer 2001, this was the first interop for these products and they faired very well in the testing with nearly 30 different OPC servers.
   

TOP Server I/O Server testing results

The TOP Server did very well in testing - the list of client applications that connected to the server are shown below. Our users may find this shocking, but we don't mind sharing our results -- we feel it is a good way to show you our committment to this process and that in letting you know if we did have to make any improvements to the server as a result of interop, you'll see that we took the time to go the extra mile in testing on top of our internal testing and then made improvements as a result.  We feel users will vote with their purchases for developers who test their products well and then also go the extra mile to attend Interop and put their server out in an open network environment and let other OPC clients connect and exercise the server.

All in all the server did very well - the only issue brought to our attention by a client vendor was a slight change that needed to be made in how deadband was handled when a client application passed in a deadband value on an OPC group. Deadband is an optional setting clients can pass to servers and thus this issue only applied when people were using deadband. The issue was fixed on the spot and has been included in the install set released 2/19/02 and is available as a free upgrade (click to download) to all TOP Server users. If you have version 4.63.191-U or higher of the TOP Server (click Help-->About in the server for version info on your machine) then the change made from Interop is included. 

If you have any questions about our participation in OPC Interop 2002, please feel free to call us or send us an email - the people who did attend would be available for discussion of results if needed. 

Client applications that tested against the TOP Server at OPC Interop 2002. Note that if there were any special setups needed in the client to work with OPC in general, we do not have access to that information and you should contact the OPC client developer for full instructions on how to use their application with OPC servers in general.

ABB OPC Transporter

ABB Process Portal Client

ABB PIPC AAS OPC Bridge Client

Advanced Engineering Data Xchange

Aspen Technology Infoplus.21 CIMIO_OPC

Automsoft RAPID

Bently Nevada Data Manager 2000 Opc Client Version 1.05

Canary Labs Canary Logger

Canary Labs TrendLink

Cyberlogic OPC Client

Honeywell Uniformance PHD OPC OLEDB Provider

Honeywell Uniformance PHD OPC RDI

Iconics GraphWorX

Iconics OPC DataSpy

Iconics TrendWorX Viewer

Invensys Wonderware OPC Link

Invensys Foxboro AIM OPC I_O Gate - note this is an OPC DA 1.0 client and special setups are needed to work with any OPC server over DCOM - contact us for details on use with this client application.

Kepware LinkMaster

Northern Dynamic NDI OPC Gateway V2.3

OSI Software OPC Interface for PI

OSI Software PIOPCTool

Siemens SimatiC WinCC V6.0

TechnoSoftware AG OPC Client Source Toolkit (Linux)

TechnoSoftware AG OPC Client Source Toolkit (Windows)

Terravic Visual OPCTest Office

Terravic Visual OPCTest Validator

USData FactoryLink 7.0 OPC Client

USData FactoryLink 7.1 Client Builder (BETA)

USData S2K OPC Client (ALPHA)