What Is FactoryTalk Gateway

Hi everyone. I am a noob. I have looked at Rockwell's literature and searched the web a bit, but I still do not have a basic understanding of FactoryTalk Gateway and FactoryTalk View. I have used RSLogix5,500 and 5000 in the past., so I am not a complete noob. Can someone give me a high level description of what the two are and what you would use them for? I am setting up a new laptop for our Rockwell software and I do not want to install unnecessary software.

Thanks

Welcome to the Forum!
You will most likely not need to worry about installing FactoryTalk Gateway on a new laptop.
FT Gateway is part of the FactoryTalk suite of distributed Allen-Bradley/Rockwell-Automation SCADA applications; it is the dedicated "third-party" OPC Data Server, providing "third-party" applications/systems access to FactoryTalk applications/system; it is usually running on a "highly connected" Server Class machine.
http://www.rockwellautomation.com/rockwellsoftware/data/gateway/overview.page
FactoryTalk View is the A-B/RA HMI application development tool.
For your new laptop, you will need the FactoryTalk View Studio Machine Edition (ME) which is the tool required for developing "Stand-Alone" PanelView Plus and PanelView Plus 6 HMI terminals applications.
http://www.rockwellautomation.com/rockwellsoftware/performance/view/overview.page