1. What’s New In OPC Data.NET 5.1x? Renee Sikes Applications Engineer

2. Introducing OPC A&E Custom Client Development Agenda – 45 Minutes OPC to Visual Studio.NET Overview OPCData.NET Overview What’s new in version 5.11 Live training – Set up TOP Server A&E Plug-in – Connecting to A&E server – Browsing for data in A&E server – Subscribing to A&E server Discussion, Questions & Answers

3. Using Visual Studio as an OPC Client When you configure an HMI, you configure an OPC client connection to the OPC Server. In VS.NET you need an OPC client plug-in tool Good Design and Planning Still Required – Systems are only as good as weakest link Visual Basic to 1 OPC Server to 1-N Devices

4. Putting it to Work Server Application Client Tool Plug-In

5. OPC Client Plug-In Tools Two Types – Free & Commercial Free Wrapper Objects – Available from OPC Foundation – Requires understanding of key OPC interfaces and working with handles & collections – Community support only – no phone or email support Commercial Software Tools – Variety of types & languages available – Details of OPC implementation abstracted for user – User focuses on “read this”, “write that” – Phone, email support usually included – OPC Certified solutions are available

6. OPCData.NET 100% managed, native 32 and 64 bit.NET component Visual Studio 2005, 2008, 2010 Easy to use API Abstracts much of the OPC work under the hood – Supports OPC DA and A&E Includes UA COM wrapper Multi-threaded, non-blocking design for high performance Self-optimizing OPC Self-Certified OPCData-COM available for ActiveX users

7. Your application with OPCData.NET Typical Usage Can be used from within any tool based on the Microsoft.NET Framework Thick-client.NET applications – Windows Forms Thin-client web applications – Building your own web service or Windows Services Your OPC- DA or A&E Serve r

8. OPCData.NET API Two main assemblies – EasyOpcClassicNet.dll Classes that hold common OPC information Classes that work with OPC Data Access and OPC Alarms and Events – EasyOpcNetForms.dll Classes that work with OPC-DA from Windows Forms applications (browsing dialogs) SwtbExtenderReplacement.dll – Targeted for current users of SWTB Extender.NET

9. OPCData.NET API EasyDAClient is the main object that allows access to OPC DA servers EasyAEClient is the main object that allows access to OPC A&E servers Browsing via dialog or code Allows simultaneous operations – multiple threads for improved efficiency Error handling – OPC-related errors, COM/DCOM errors, errors returned from OPC server, errors detected by OPCData.NET library Helper properties for increased control – Synchronous and asynchronous operations, timeout and hold periods, percent deadband

10. What is OPC A&E? A set of standardized interfaces used to pass alarm and event information – “alarm” and “event” used interchangeably Designed to compliment existing OPC DA interfaces

11. Parts of an A&E Server Area- a logical grouping of plant equipment for which events and conditions are available An organizational “folder” Condition- a names state of the event server which of interest to the client – Single state – Multi-state: has mutually exclusive sub-conditions – Has a set of attributes that can be accessed to give more information to the client about the condition Active, ActiveSubCondition, Enabled, Acked, LastAckTime, etc – Has a quality associated with it

12. Parts of an A&E Server Subcondition- part of a range of values which define a condition (ex. HighHighAlarm or LevelAlarm) – Has attributes associated with it including: name, definition, severity, description Severity is spread over a range of 1 -1000, typically in an even and logical distribution OPC RangeOPC Severity Hi- Hi751-1000 Hi501-750 Lo251-500 Lo-Lo1-250

13. Parts of an A&E server Event- detectable occurrence in the event server – Condition-related: associated with conditions – Tracking-related: interaction of OPC client with an object in event server – Simple: any other than above Event Categories- groupings of events support by an event server. – Includes events of one type of category (ex. Deviation alarms, level alarms, runtime error events, etc)

14. Live Demo Set up the TOP Server A&E Plug-in VB.NET Client using Data.NET 5.11 – Connecting to A&E server – Browsing for data in A&E server – Subscribing to events in A&E server

15. What Tools are Needed? For all usage scenarios – No tag count limits – No limits on # of clients, # of servers OPCData.NET Single PC Usage License (p/n 41283501) $595 OPCData.NET Single Developer + Runtime Free License (p/n 41283502) $995 Multiple developer discounts available OPC Data Client (p/n 41283508) $1495 – OPCData.NET – OPCData-COM Support contracts also available (20% of List Price) Contact us for upgrade pricing from OPCWebClient 3.02

16. Contact Information & Other Learning Opportunities Free Demo: http://opcwebclient.com/html/free_demo.asp Questions later? – Renee Sikes rsikes@softwaretoolbox.com 888-665-3678 x 1328 or 704-849-2773 x 1328 – www.opcwebclient.com Other learning opportunities – Recording of this webinar – Visit www.softwaretoolbox.com/webinars