A year in review of the most popular topics and discussions on the OptoForums.

Let's talk for a moment about our fantastic Opto 22 forum fans. The OptoForums host an amazing community.

It seems that only a very small number of industrial automation manufacturers run their own public forums. Some community-supported efforts have sprung up to backfill the need for a place where like-minded folks can gather, but there is something special about having a place that is, well, for lack of a better term, "factory supported."

Why is that a big deal?

Topics: Modbus, REST API, CODESYS, OPC UA, OptoForum, OptoMMP

Have you ever been stuck on a coding problem? Unsure of which tool to use for an application? Or if you have the functionality you need to get the job done? Maybe you’ve just got a new system and need a map to help you learn the new features and functionality.

Topics: PAC Control, REST API, Node-RED, MQTT, Ignition Edge, IEC 61131-3, groov EPIC, developer

The 22nd Annual ARC Industry Forum in Orlando this February focused on digitizing and securing industry and infrastructure. 

Topics: groov, Internet of Things, Remote monitoring, IoT, PACs, New products, Events & conferences, API, REST API, REST, IIoT, Industrial Internet of Things, Node-RED, Data acquisition, Ignition Edge, EPIC

Over the years, one of the most difficult things I’ve had to help clients with is justifying an automation project. Whether it’s a new system or an upgrade, the challenge is often in quantifying the benefits financially.

Topics: Internet of Things, IoT, API, REST API, IIoT, Industrial Internet of Things

What if your operators could enter machine data on their phones and that data automatically appeared in a Microsoft^® Excel^® spreadsheet? 

What if production or usage data from your spreadsheet was automatically updated in your supervisor's groov mobile operator interface?

Could be pretty handy, right?

Well, we've got a couple of code samples to show you how to make it happen. 

Topics: groov, Internet of Things, IoT, optonews, Integrators, API, REST API, REST, mobile, IIoT, Industrial Internet of Things

It's easy to get confused between Opto 22 SNAP PAC controllers and SNAP PAC brains. 

They're both intelligent processors for automation, some of them look alike, and there's even overlap in what some of them do.

Let's take a look at how SNAP PAC controllers and brains are similar and how they're different.  

Topics: Tips, PACs, I/O, API, REST API

The holy grail of IIoT applications is the ability to basically predict the future.

We want to know when something, either a system or a component in our process is going to fail—before it actually does.

Topics: Internet of Things, IoT, PACs, API, REST API, IIoT, Industrial Internet of Things

In our last post we covered how Core Services in the new EdgeX project from the Linux Foundation help engineers quickly build edge computing and IIoT applications. Core Services are the microservices EdgeX provides to convert physical electrical signals from industrial devices into digital information.

In this post, we’ll focus on how EdgeX makes digital data from industrial assets available to higher-level computing systems like predictive analytics and machine learning.

But before the data is made available to those systems, EdgeX uses what it calls Supporting Microservices to do some pretty high-tech stuff to package the data and make it easily accessible.

Topics: Internet of Things, IoT, PACs, API, REST API, IIoT, Industrial Internet of Things, EdgeX

In several previous posts we talked about some of the software technologies automation professionals should put on their radar in preparation for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications.

JavaScript, node.js and Node-RED offer a ton of benefits to those looking to build their IIoT application. Learn more about the Industrial Internet of Things in the State of the IIoT white paper.

Topics: Internet of Things, IoT, PACs, API, REST API, REST, IIoT, Industrial Internet of Things, Node-RED, MQTT

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is coming at us fast. Big players like Dell, IBM, and Amazon are entering industrial markets and creating disruption among the typical market vendors. And with these new players comes a variety of technologies that are being applied in new and interesting ways to build the IIoT.

Over the next several blog posts, we’ll be discussing the top 5 software technologies and languages that systems integrators and automation engineers should begin learning about to be ready to build Industrial Internet of Things applications. Sign up for the blog to get access to followup blog posts as they’re released.

Topics: IoT, API, REST API, IIoT