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I am ever more convinced that the future of plant wide supervison and industrial control lies in the hands of XML, and it would seem that most
would agree with this, certainly when you ask anybody about it they say "thats the way we are heading".
Yet whilst other industry sectors, toolmakers and OS vendors (yep, even MS) are coming up with standard schemas, Automation seems a bit left
behind.
OPC are supposedly working on it, but I cannot find any official offerings. Indescretions say that they aiming to use XML to transport
thier existing DCOM objects so that it is upwards compatible. One naturally assumes that this is uninformed speculation, I certainaly hope so. DCOM is heavily typed whilst the versatility of XML is due to its abstraction and free form nature. COM over XML sounds like fitting a
Ferrari with tractor tyres, and if the bloated nature of OPC systems reminds you of the Michelin man, this approach should come up like a Sumo wrestler;-). So what are OPC REALLY doing with XML? Anybody know?
The only organisation that seems to be active on XML for industrial automation is Mimosa (http://www.mimosa.org). This is a much smaller
group than OPC, and they do not make much noise, but they appear to be a busy and well informed bunch. Well, at least they have allready defined
and released a working XML standard, and defined conformance tests, and indeed certified a couple of industrial XML products. Do they have a
future?
Is anybody else woking on XML schemas for IA?
would agree with this, certainly when you ask anybody about it they say "thats the way we are heading".
Yet whilst other industry sectors, toolmakers and OS vendors (yep, even MS) are coming up with standard schemas, Automation seems a bit left
behind.
OPC are supposedly working on it, but I cannot find any official offerings. Indescretions say that they aiming to use XML to transport
thier existing DCOM objects so that it is upwards compatible. One naturally assumes that this is uninformed speculation, I certainaly hope so. DCOM is heavily typed whilst the versatility of XML is due to its abstraction and free form nature. COM over XML sounds like fitting a
Ferrari with tractor tyres, and if the bloated nature of OPC systems reminds you of the Michelin man, this approach should come up like a Sumo wrestler;-). So what are OPC REALLY doing with XML? Anybody know?
The only organisation that seems to be active on XML for industrial automation is Mimosa (http://www.mimosa.org). This is a much smaller
group than OPC, and they do not make much noise, but they appear to be a busy and well informed bunch. Well, at least they have allready defined
and released a working XML standard, and defined conformance tests, and indeed certified a couple of industrial XML products. Do they have a
future?
Is anybody else woking on XML schemas for IA?