Data Connectivity

A primer on the types of protocols used by the ICONICS Suite, how those protocols interface to the Platform Services Layer, and how to plan an application to take advantage of the features within each protocol.

The FA connector can connect to a wide variety of Mitsubishi Electric equipment leveraging the CC-Link protocol.

OPC, the Open Platform Communications protocol, is an open standard that has been around for decades. It is used in a variety of industries for providing connectivity to PLCs, RTUs, meters, and other sensor equipment. It remains the most broadly applicable open standard in use, and is natively integrated into the ICONICS platform as a standard protocol.

OPC UA (Unified Architecture) is the object-oriented approach to data organization and transfer that is developed by the OPC Foundation. Like its predecessor, the UA model has become broadly adopted in a range of industries and is increasingly finding applications in the IoT space. It includes intrinsic security via a certificate model built into the core of the technology, and expands upon the ability for communication in a networked environment.

The DeviceXPlorer is a powerful OPC UA Server which supports a wide arrange of protocol conversions. It can be used in a multitude of ways to help normalize an application's protocol communications on OPC UA.

SNMP is a protocol which is standard within the IT and network environment, and is commonly supported by computers, servers, network switches and routers, and power supplies.

Modbus is a communications protocol that has become the de-facto standard for quick, no-frills connectivity to sensors and equipment. It is used in a broad collection of industries, and is quick to configure and start using.

Web Services, particularly SOAP and REST based services, are commonly used for communication between software-based systems. They are natively supported for a spectrum of GET and POST message formats.

Database integration to the likes of MS SQL Server, Oracle, and others is essential to a variety of applications. It is particularly useful for interfacing to track and trace, MES, or other 3rd party systems which may handle process data directly.

Expanding upon the core protocols supported by ICONICS systems, there are a variety of other situational uses for data ingestion through other protocols. Furthermore, there are options for creating custom protocol interfaces as needed.