3rady
Member
The company I work for sells equipment which is controlled by software running on a PC. In cases where the end-user wants to integrate our equipment with a PLC and/or HMI systems we typically use an appropriate OPC server (RSLinx, Kepware, etc.) to connect our software (which is an OPC client) to the user's system.
We are exploring options to make this integration more direct. One option I'm considering is adding OPC-UA server functionality to our software. That would allow HMI systems to connect to our system directly.
Questions: Do PLCs these days support connecting directly to OPC-UA servers? If not is this something that may happen in the future? Would making our system an OPC-UA server make any sense in terms of direct connections to PLCs?
As an alternative we are considering adding Ethernet/IP to our system. That would allow current Allen-Bradley PLCs to be able to communicate directly to our system, but I'm not sure how many HMI systems connect directly to Ethernet/IP "devices". (Note that I think integration with PLCs is more important than with HMI systems.)
Question: Would you recommend that we implement an OPC-UA server or Ethernet/IP? I'd like the widest array of PLC types to be able to connect with our system directly.
Thanks!
We are exploring options to make this integration more direct. One option I'm considering is adding OPC-UA server functionality to our software. That would allow HMI systems to connect to our system directly.
Questions: Do PLCs these days support connecting directly to OPC-UA servers? If not is this something that may happen in the future? Would making our system an OPC-UA server make any sense in terms of direct connections to PLCs?
As an alternative we are considering adding Ethernet/IP to our system. That would allow current Allen-Bradley PLCs to be able to communicate directly to our system, but I'm not sure how many HMI systems connect directly to Ethernet/IP "devices". (Note that I think integration with PLCs is more important than with HMI systems.)
Question: Would you recommend that we implement an OPC-UA server or Ethernet/IP? I'd like the widest array of PLC types to be able to connect with our system directly.
Thanks!