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• Patented event-driven tag update  
  - I/O response that is 7 times faster
  - save 80% on network bandwidth
• Firewall-friendly connection from remote ioLogik/ioPAC devices
  - Allows remote ioLogik/ioPAC units to use dynamic IPs
  - Allows remote ioLogik/ioPAC units to use private IPs
• OPC DA 3.0 supported

   

Introduction

Active OPC Server Lite is a software package provided by Moxa that operates as an OPC driver for an HMI or SCADA system. It offers seamless connection from Moxa's ioLogik series products to SCADA systems, such as Wonderware, Citect, and iFix. Active OPC Server Lite meets the latest standard of OPC DA 3.0, which allows connections to various kinds of devices and host OPC machines.

Seamlessly Connect to SCADA System—Migrating from "Pull" to "Push"
General OPC servers typically use the “pull” architecture to connect to Ethernet I/O or RTU devices, which involves an HMI/SCADA system continuously sending out commands to collect relevant data. Active OPC Server supports the standard OPC protocol, but also offers active (or “push”) communication with the ioLogik/ioPAC series products to HMI/SCADA systems, providing instant I/O status reports.

I/O Response that's 7 Times Faster and Provides 80% off Bandwidth Usage with Event-driven Tag Updates
Adding additional I/O channels will tend to bog down an HMI/SCADA system's operation, resulting in a longer response time and high network bandwidth occupation, all because of the traditional "pull" architecture. Active tags created by Active OPC Server Lite and ioLogik/ioPAC series products report the I/O status only by event, which means the I/O status will be updated to the Active OPC Server when there is an I/O status change, a pre-configured interval is reached, or when requested by the user. The heartbeat design also checks if the connection is alive or not, preventing from no updates from the remote ioLogik/ioPAC devices.

This type of event-driven tag status update results in an I/O response time that is 7 times faster than other OPC Server packages (using a testing environment with 2,560 I/O channels). In addition, periodic updates to the Active OPC server are also possible. In a different test of network bandwidth usage, Active OPC Server Lite and the ioLogik caused an apparent 80% reduction in network traffic. The end result is that I/O access is more precise, and the cost of communicating with remote I/O devices is substantially lower, especially when the remote site has limited bandwidth.

Solving the Dynamic/Private IP Issue on a Mobile Device with Cellular Networking
Dynamic/private IP addresses are usually used for remote data acquisition devices, especially when connecting via cellular networks. Active OPC Server Lite and ioLogik/ioPAC products provide the flexibility of configuring the ioLogik/ioPAC to use dynamic IP addresses. The ioLogik/ioPAC connects directly to the Active OPC Server Lite instead of being polled, which makes dynamic IP addressing and WAN Access to the RTU and remote I/O device possible, and adds even greater flexibility by allowing connections across firewalls. I/O devices for traditional data acquisition applications are not capable of using this approach.

Automatic Tag Generation
Active OPC Server Lite and ioLogik/ioPAC series products support “Auto Tag Generation,” which eliminates the headache of specifying target IP addresses, I/O channels, and data formats one by one, or editing and importing configuration text files, since Active OPC Server Lite creates the tags for the target ioLogik/ioPAC automatically. Simply select the channels that you need to update, and the tags are generated and configured automatically. One of the biggest payoffs is that users will no longer need to be trained to install and configure your OPC.

Can be used with the following products:
ioLogik E1200 series: Ethernet Remote I/O
ioLogik E2200 series: Ethernet Micro RTU Controller
ioLogik E4200: Modular Ethernet Remote I/O
ioLogik W5300 series: Cellular Micro RTU Controller
ioPAC 8000 series: Modular RTU Controller (C & ISaGRAF Models)