How can you deliver modern Industry 4.0 capabilities that still come in under budget? Harry McCollum of Tatsoft illustrates.

Today’s applications require more than a one-vendor approach. FrameworX by Tatsoft provides an open, extensible software platform as an alternative to the big control vendors. It includes everything you need to build world-class industrial applications at an affordable price: SCADA, HMI, MES, IIoT, mobile, dashboards, and more. With FrameworX, you can do it all without breaking the bank!

But being the affordable alternative doesn’t mean we’re lightweights. Tatsoft’s founder and CTO was the founder of InduSoft, and many from the core development team are also key contributors to FrameworX.

That experienced team came together again to build a new platform that addresses common process control problems and can be extended easily using modern programming languages to meet your customers' unique requirements.

Who uses FrameworX?

Here are just a few examples of the thousands of applications our customers have delivered with FrameworX:

• Many oil and gas upstream and midstream companies use FrameworX for data collection and analytics. In one example, a major oil exploration company worked with Tatsoft to optimize drilling across many of its sites. They use FrameworX to collect data using WITSML and WITS protocols and to host proprietary analytics developed in Python that give direct feedback for improving drilling performance. FrameworX also sends data to OSISoft’s PI and Azure IoT to aggregate analytics across many drilling sites.
  
  
• A major pharmaceutical company wanted to replace their legacy data collection and reporting system while complying with 21 CFR Part 11. A Tatsoft system integrator used FrameworX to deliver a solution built on MQTT, OPC UA, and InfluxDB with unlimited potential for growth.
  
  
• One of our OEM partners provides a set of advanced SCADA solutions for the energy industry by white labeling FactoryStudio—Tatsoft’s SCADA package built on top of FrameworX. It integrates with their packaged solutions for substation automation, grid monitoring, windfarm, and solar management. Together, we developed these energy-specific solutions, including dynamic tag providers for DNP 3.0, IEC 61850, and IEC 60870-5-104, to name a few. Tag providers automatically discover tag structures and enable you to use the tags within your application without any additional configuration.

What’s under the hood?

In today’s data-driven environment, you need a software platform that can bridge the gap to your legacy systems and also build modern Industry 4.0 apps. FrameworX is based on IT and OT standards that give you the flexibility you need to do both.

FrameworX uses an underlying .NET object model optimized for real-time applications and web services, including a full .NET API. It supports scripting with modern programming languages, including C#, VB.NET, and Python. FrameworX runs on Windows and Linux and can be accessed through our native iOS app.

FrameworX includes everything you need to develop industrial applications for your industry. No need to buy additional modules.

The diagram below shows the main components of the FrameworX platform, which are focused on collecting, processing, storing, visualizing, and analyzing real-time data.

Connect to anything with over 70 built-in device drivers, including MQTT, OPC UA, Modbus, Siemens, and Rockwell. Or you can build your own using our driver development toolkit. No need to buy additional modules.

Process, store, and transform data using our real-time, event-driven, in-memory SQL database that manages tags, assets, and events. Or you can connect to any external SQL or NoSQL database.

We also include an embedded version of Canary Historian with 500 pre-licensed points that can scale to an unlimited point count. Or you can connect to any process historian with our connectors and dynamic tag providers.

Visualize and analyze your data using the FrameworX GUI module to configure SCADA/HMI graphics using the included symbols or ones that you create yourself. You can also create custom data-driven dashboards with extensive trending and data grid development tools.

We provide an open environment so you can add in .NET or HTML5 components, controls, and custom analytics capabilities for your unique requirements with built-in support for C#, VB.NET, Python and JavaScript for code behind HTML5 displays. You can visualize and run scripts based on data change or operator action.

All of this functionality is available in a single engineering environment with simple licensing that scales in many ways:

• FrameworX Unlimited with unlimited tags, unlimited clients, and unlimited connections
• FactoryStudio sized by I/O and clients: 500 to 15,000 I/O
• Edge HMI for panel displays sized by I/O and clients
• Edge Gateway sized by I/O
• Free Canary Historian and HiveMQ licenses are included on all systems
• Optional redundancy on FrameworX and FactoryStudio

Opto 22 and FrameworX integration

You can get started on FrameworX with your groov EPIC edge programmable industrial controller or groov RIO edge I/O device by using FrameworX’s dynamic tag providers.

You can auto-discover Opto 22 device tags and tag structures through MQTT, giving you rapid integration with zero tag-mapping. Although FrameworX boasts a huge device driver library, MQTT/SparkplugB-enabled devices ensure that OT and IT data is easily exchanged across your infrastructure.

You can use FrameworX’s built-in MQTT broker or use our bundled licensing to connect to HiveMQ’s enterprise broker. Once connected to FrameworX, take full advantage of all the complete platform has to offer, including SCADA, scripting, and integrated Canary Historian based on your requirements.

If you’d like to see FrameworX for yourself, feel free to reach out to me at harry@tatsoft.com and schedule a live demo, or click the button below to download a free trial.

-- Harry McCollum, President @ Tatsoft