OPC Server for Linux

O

Thread Starter

Oldie

I have written a simple SCADA program called miniSCADA for Windows. In the old days, no problems using RS232/485 but now ethernet needs and openess between systems I use OPC Server. Eventually my question.....I wrote this using Delphi (pascal) and now Borland has brought out a
fabulous package called Kylix which ports my SCADA directly to Linux. However, do I run OPC Server under something like WINE or does anyone
out there know of an OPC Server type exchange for Linux....or do we need to start up a Linux equivelent Open Source project
 
D
OPC is based on Microsoft's COM/DCOM technology. I don't think (but am not positive) that WINE or any of the other Windows emulators for Linux provide support for COM/DCOM.

Options that I'm aware of:

1) SoftwareAG offers COM/DCOM for Linux applications in the form of a product called EntireX, "http://www.softwareag.com/entirex/download/free_download.htm":http://www.softwareag.com/entirex/download/free_download.htm .
From what I've heard, EntireX is an expensive purchase.

2) A fledgling open-source effort called *FreeDCE and DCOM* intends to provide COM/DCOM support for Linux applications. It is happening at
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedce":http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedce .

3) And the obvious one... produce a like function OPC server as a native Linux application.
 
I think that it would be better to start an open source project to implement somthing like OPC server on linux. The reason is that although WINE is great and will allow to run any opc server
on Linux, It will be limiting us to use only the presently available commercial OPC servers.

If a new project is started, it can atleast promise to add -connctivity-drivers-support for new hardware, or old hardware which is not yet
included in the current list of opc drivers.

The addition will be done by community, and will be free for all to use. If all goes well, very soon, we we will have access to data of most PLC's in the market.

Moreover, this OPC server can then be used by the ongoing LPC project, (in case the Linux PLC needs to read values from another PLC, and take control decisions based on data from other plc)

regards,
Indiver

 
C

Curt Wuollet

Even though I might prefer something not linked to MS technology, this would be an great example of what a community controlled Linux distribution could offer. There are certainly enough brains reading this to do it without any one entity investing too much time and the benefit would be substantial especially when you can't find any other way. There are a lot of bits and pieces floating around that would make an excellent platfom for automation if they were donated instead of moldering on a hard disk somewhere.

Regards

cww
 
Top