Virtual PLC, Real Time simulation

Hi,

I am working on vplc and real time simulation software. What is the current trend in Virtual PLC ? What is the future of PLCs ? Is Real Time simulation a future of PLC ?Is it worth to focus on vplc ?

Thank you for your advices.

I have no idea what people mean by virtual PLC, can anyone clue me in? Virtual PC makes sense to me but virtual PLC? When you need to interface real IO to PLC, what's the point of virtualization? Unless you mean virtual PLC in term of simulating the control process on the bench.

Not sure if this is the same animal, but I have worked with A-B SoftLogix5800 Soft PLCs before, which is a software based Logix PLC engine running on a PC. We'd have an Ethernet/ControlNet/RIO PCI card plugged into the motherboard to talk to the real world I/O. We've gotten away from using them as there have been issues with faulty program backups, among other things.