RSLinx OPC Server Question + Application

Hello All,

I am going to try and lay out my situation as good as I can.

Scenario: We have sites in different location across US that's running CompactLogix controllers. There are independent systems on the company network. We are trying to gather some specific data from all these processors (For example, tank levels for all the tanks in the US) over OPC and house it in one place. (Unless there's a better approach)

Question: Is it possible to have 1 RSLinx software pull all this data from multiple PLCs and house it in RSLinx OPC Server?

Later on, I am trying to use the KepServer to get all this information using the OPC DA Client channel for some advanced tags use.

I have put together a rough idea on what I am trying to do in the attached picture.

Yes that should work out.

We had remote OPC servers which acted partially like this. Have your networking team onboard so that networking issues can be worked out, but barring that, the architecture should work.

As for the # of tags, are you expecting a fast, live response? What's the latency your system expects? What is your planned tag scan rate?

arth608 said:

Hello All,

I am going to try and lay out my situation as good as I can.

Scenario: We have sites in different location across US that's running CompactLogix controllers. There are independent systems on the company network. We are trying to gather some specific data from all these processors (For example, tank levels for all the tanks in the US) over OPC and house it in one place. (Unless there's a better approach)

Question: Is it possible to have 1 RSLinx software pull all this data from multiple PLCs and house it in RSLinx OPC Server?

Later on, I am trying to use the KepServer to get all this information using the OPC DA Client channel for some advanced tags use.

I have put together a rough idea on what I am trying to do in the attached picture.

View attachment 58415

Click to expand...

I think this will work, but I don't think your IT people will be happy with it. If you can access one of the networks, you can then access the others. At least - our IT people would dislike it.


For network separation, having RSLinx on a computer at each site would maybe be best. Each site could be in different subnet, with some separation that way as long as the computer that is running RSLinx can find them

At our sites, those RSLinx would be in the Control Domain, and there is a control domain at each site. A Kepware, or PI, or whatever historian you are using could then have a data collector in the DMZ at each site. Head office would then have the historian - Kepware, PI, etc that everyone in your administrative LAN would access.


As for latency and timing - the timestamp can be put on the data when it reaches an OPC computer. I could also be put on when it reaches an OPC computer with historian services.

Just make sure to buy RSLinx Gateway license. That will allow it to be an OPC server and connect to many PLCs.

Yes, you can do this. The only thing I would consider is to further streamline the path by getting Kepware now so you don't need RSlinx (licensed version). If you don't already have the RSLinx licensed version, it maybe even cheaper just to get the Kepware now.

As an aside, I do hope you have better separation between your IT and OT network consider all that's going on these days.