Det-Tronics S3 Graphics - Manual (Page 72)

9-1 OPC SERVER
Version 6.0
S 3 is designed to simply and efficiently “integrate” data from a variety of multi-vendor safety solutions into a
common Operator Interface Station (OIS) where it can be viewed, tracked, and presented to the operator.
We have chosen “OPC” as the mechanism for sharing this concentrated safety system data with other systems
throughout the facility.
Traditionally, each software or application developer was required to write a custom interface, or server/driver,
to exchange data with hardware field devices. OPC eliminates this requirement by defining a common, high
performance interface that permits this work to be done once, and then easily reused by HMI, SCADA, Control
and custom applications.
What is OPC? OPC (OLE for Process Control) is an industry standard created with the collaboration of a number
a leading worldwide automation and hardware software suppliers working in cooperation with Microsoft.
The organization that manages this standard is the OPC Foundation. The Foundation has over 220 members
from around the world, including nearly all of the world’s major providers of control systems, instrumentation, and
process control systems.
OPC Defined: OPC is based on Microsoft’s OLE (now Active X), COM (Component
Object Model) and DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) technologies. It
consists of a standard set of interfaces, properties, and methods for use in process-
control and manufacturing-automation applications.
The Active X/COM technologies define how individual software components can interact
and share data. OPC provides a common interface for communicating with diverse process-control devices,
regardless of the controlling software or devices in the process.
OPC in S 3
The OPC option for S 3 is one of the easiest ways to provide safety system data from many sources to the
distributed control system or other OPC compliant system.
With the OPC option S 3 becomes a “Version 2.03 Data Access Server” to make available, under user configuration,
any information being tracked by the S 3 event handling database.
The S 3 server setup is a model of simplicity. The user is presented with a tag list showing all of the points
being tracked by the system and the user can then choose what to “activate” for OPC clients to access. Using
this simple tag based method it is possible to share complex data knowing little more that the tag name. OPC
clients don’t need to know anything about the port type, serial or Ethernet settings, memory register locations,
addresses, or any of a number of technical details, just the tag name.
OPC DEFINED