Control.com - Nerds in Control

Hope you can assist.

I want to find out if it will be possible to run a program like Matrikon if we are not using a dedicated Historian. My reason for asking is that we are running Iconics Genesis 32 and I was informed that I can not use a program like Active Factory because the InSQL will not be supported by the Iconics program. I prefer using a program like Active Factory (or similar) because it makes faultfinding easier and for monthly report figures it is also so easy to use this program. Thus I ask will Matrikon OPC work if we only have a Tag server or would we need a dedicated Historian to be able to do this. Are there any other suggestions as to what I can do?

Regards,
CJ

Hi CJ

Matrikon have a variety of products, not quite sure what you are looking at.

With ActiveFactory, it is a client tool for Wonderware InSQL which is the historian. If Genesis 32 is capable of being an OPC server then InSQL can pull data from it either with OPCLink or FSGateway (both Wonderware products), otherwise you could use the IO Server that you are using with Genesis to provide the data to InSQL, if you want.

You could look at Incuity products, some of these guys are the ones who originally developed InSQL and then ActiveFactory. In fact they support ActiveFactory versions prior to version 9.

Cheers,
Trevor.

Iconics supports HDA and DA, so if your questions is whether you can use MatrikonOPC's Desktop Historian to gather tags and expose the data to Iconics, the answer is yes. If you have any other questions for us, don't hesitate to send us an email or give us a call. Contact info available here: http://matrikonopc.com/main/contact.aspx

Adriel Michaud
MatrikonOPC

I understand that you want to collect data from your HMI and do reporting based on that.
Most modern HMIs support an OPC Server that can be used for this purpose. This may be either free or licensed.

You can use any OPC Client software to collect and store the HMI data from your HMI OPC Server and reporting tool like Active Factory to generate reports. Here you have an option to use an off the shelf historian like HyperHistorian from Iconincs, InSQL for Wonderware or do some customized development using VB and SQL Server.

All modern historian produst support OPC connectivity so you are not locked up with a particular vendors products for your requirements.

Vipul Shah
vipul@egenietech.com
http://www.egenietech.com

Hello,

If you need to log data via OPC you can try our open-source (GPLv3) package PlantStreamer whose beta2 release is available from http://www.plantstreamer.com. It is Java based and so it works in Linux and Windows. PlantStreamer is designed to work with PostgreSQL via JDBC. Once you have the data in the database, you can use reporting software to process it.

Please let us know about your experience.

Best Regards,
Andrey Romanenko
Ciengis - Advanced Process Control

Hi there CJ,

First place to start is with your architecture. Iconics is a vendor that uses OPC technology. Genesis 32 is a visualisation type software (HMI, SCADA, call it what you will). This typically makes Genesis 32 a client application which is being fed information from the data source.

Assuming Iconics is based on the OPC architecture then I would expect the HMI to act as an OPC client requesting data from an OPC server. It is the OPC server you need to identify which is typically based around the control device e.g. if talking to Allen Bradley PLC's then typically this migt be the RSLinx gateway, if DeltaV then one of the embedded OPC servers.

Once you have identified the OPC server then identifying a suitable OPC client to take the data into IndSQL should be fairly straight forward.

The trick is to look at taking the data from source not from the Genesis 32 software.