The folks in MatrikonOPC support have completed their testing on Windows XP Service Pack 3.   As mentioned in an earlier post Windows XP SP3 was released to manufacturing on April 21, 2008.  It went to the public via both the Microsoft Download Center and Windows Update on May 6, 2008.

Based on their testing, the MatrikonOPC software performs as expected, and no known gotchas.   From an OPC point of view, security would be configured as per XP SP2 settings.  In addition to functionality and performance testing, they looked at installation, licensing, remote DCOM and Tunnelling connections, and mixed network interoperability.  From what they see, it’s gets a clean bill of health.

With a total of 1,174 fixes have been included in SP3, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see something within DCOM get bent of shape.  Fortunately it looks like things are OK as far as OPC operations are concerned.

You should still check with your OPC vendor to ensure their products have been verified against XP SP3.   It’s possible some of the new features affect other parts of an application outside of the OPC or DCOM interfaces.  Some of the new features include:

• Turns Black hole router detection on by default
• Network Access Protection client
• Windows Imaging Component
• Credentials Security Service Provider
• Descriptive Security options in Group Policy/Local Security Policy user interface
•  An updated version of the Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module that is FIPS 140-2 certified
• Installing without requiring a product key during setup for retail and OEM versions

Overall it looks like SP3 is nowhere near the painful experience that SP2 was for many users.  (Unless of course you installed some of the early RC builds or are running an HP AMD machine.).   If anyone out there is having OPC pain with their XP SP3, then drop me an update.

I often follow the forums on Globalspec.com, and this latest thread that asks the question “Where is the Critical Thinking in Engineering” caught my eye.  One of the posters follows up with several good questions to ponder…

·         Where is the critical thinking?

·         What is the role of critical thinking in Engineering as a profession?

·         Where does it come from in the development of a competent engineer or technical specialist? Is it taught? Demonstrated, or merely stumbled upon?

This particular topic is referring to Engineering as a whole, and sprouted from the originating topic of a dubious perpetual motion machine patent.  (Let’s not talk patents, shall we).  The subject matter got me thinking about the role of ‘critical thinking’ in OPC architectures.  There has been a lot of news lately focusing on OPC certification, the independent test labs and interoperability testing.  That’s all great stuff, since you can’t build a good OPC network without robust building blocks, but a good network also demands good thinking.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; a solid, interoperable OPC network requires informed input from those that know and work with OPC.  With more OPC UA products hitting the market everyday, this is becoming even more important.    Regardless of what OPC flavor you are using, you need to be working with a trusted vendor who understands your requirements and has the products and services to meet your needs.   OPC has done amazing things with leveling the playing field for system interoperability.  However, no protocol, technology or product can remove the planning and understanding needed in creating industrial strength connections between different systems. 

The OPC Foundation and its members know this to be true, and are working on things to make it easier for end users find these knowledgeable vendors.  On the OPC Foundation front, the creation of the ‘SI&D (System Integrators and Distributors) category is a first step.   On the vendor, initiatives like the MatrikonOPC Integrator Program are designed to ensure system integrators have access to the necessary OPC architecture and design experts, products, training and supported for successful project implementation.  It’s all about education and communication on what works and how OPC fits best in your system.  (Without this, you have people getting the wrong impression like those Carl recently posted on.)

Where is the critical thinking in terms of OPC?  It’s with those that know and work with OPC every day.  Where does it come from?  Is it taught?  Demonstrated or stumbled upon?  In a word…  Yes.

Some more thoughts on Green things.   When you start talking about Green and large scale businesses, the topic of Green Data Centers always comes up.   I saw this article on the Globalspec blog about how a single Google search burns about 2-8 Watt-hours of energy, which they estimate to be 1.8 Million KWh/day.   Don’t know where the numbers come from since the article doesn’t cite any sources, but no matter how you look at it, mega data centers go through a lot of energy.

After burning a few Watt-hours on Google myself, I came across this article on “Seven Steps To A Green Data Center”.   A few pages along is the step called  “Break down internal business barriers”

“While IT has carefully tracked performance and uptime, most IT organizations aren’t held accountable for energy efficiency due to the separation of IT functions from the facilities group. The former generates the load, while the latter usually gets the power bill, says Uptime Institute’s Brill. “ …

Now how can you bridge the communication gap between IT guys that understand SNMP, and the facilities guys that understand BACNet and, Johnson Controls?  Hmm….  Maybe OPC?

While I’m on the subject of OPC and energy management, a reminder that ConnectivityWeek 2008 – “Empowering The Energy Revolution” is happening next week (May 20-22^nd).  It includes the two-day IndConn, which focuses on industrial IT and automation and is organized in partnership with the OPC Foundation and Open O&M, so a lot of the topics will center around OPC and OPC UA.

The ongoing discussion on ‘Is OPC really considered an open standard if you have to pay for the specifications’ has recently gathered steam again on the forums and other sites.  I posted on this topic last summer and the same arguments and counter arguments are still going around.  Most center on two points; definition of an open standard and definition of nominal fee.  As I’ve said in the past, these are really the wrong things to be focusing on, since there really is no one, accepted definition by everyone.   Wikipedia’s got a good explanation of the various open standard definitions.   The one thing that most agree on is that open means available to everyone without discrimination and does not use a ‘pay-to-use’ or royalty model.

Where things are a bit gray is that some definitions of open do allow ‘pay-to-produce’ fees, and what are acceptable fees to charge.  Some folks argue that not everyone can afford the set fees, so therefore are being discriminated against.  A grad student or one-main integrator shop has a different view of ‘nominal’ than a multi-million dollar global vendor.  No method is perfect.  Even the WC3 which is ‘open to everyone’ and ‘free to access and use’ has its critics.  So, I say these arguments can’t really be won since everyone finds a definition that supports their view.  The reason the OPC Foundation now requires membership to access the specs is an attempt at improving the overall quality and interoperability of OPC products.  I’m all for a debate on the topic.  But let’s talk about the real topic. The question that should be asked is ‘Does a pay-to-produce model improve overall quality?’  

Personally, I don’t know.  What I do know is that the OPC specifications used to be available for free download and there where many interoperability problems.  The message coming from a lot of end users was:  “We don’t what more OPC products, we want better OPC products.”   The stance the OPC Foundation has taken is if you plan to develop OPC products, it requires membership which comes with access to the specifications and the associated code base and tools to help ensure a solid quality baseline.

In the early days of ‘classic’ OPC there were many client applications built on the OPC technology by non-members that did not measure up to expected quality and had many interoperability problems.  The argument that ‘more eyes are better’ and having an Open Source model will create a more reliable infrastructure doesn’t seem to be supported by OPC history.  Take the Automation wrapper and server sample code for example.  The code was freely available, yet it didn’t evolve over time.  Many people just took the sample code and released products; good, bad or ugly.   This became one of the biggest contributing factors to OPC interoperability problems.  It was only after the OPC Foundation took back ownership and provided dedicated support for the wrappers did all the fixes get integrated.  Why?  Maybe it’s because the majority of the OPC community is vendors, users and integrators whose core competence is Industrial Automation. Does it work for something like Linux because of the sheer volume of developers in their community?  Now that the scope of OPC UA extends beyond just the Microsoft platform does that mean there is a much larger pool of developers waiting to contribute?  It doesn’t seem to me that the team of volunteers working on the specifications and code has suddenly grown exponentially.

The OPC Foundation’s solution to the problem was to set the bar so only those individuals and companies that are committed to developing OPC products have access to the tools to do so.   Membership signifies commitment.  Adoption without verified interoperability is not adoption at all.  I suppose that OPC could move to a ‘Brand Licensing’ model such as Bluetooth uses.  The specifications are free to view by anyone, however only the Adopter Members are allowed to develop commercial products and use the brand name.  (Of course the other side of that is, what good is looking at a specification if you aren’t developing a product with it?  If I am a company developing a new headset or hand held peripheral am I really going to say “Well, we need a communication protocol to connect with all the PCs, phones and Blackberries on the market.  Let’s take a good look at the technical details of the Bluetooth protocol and see if we want to go with that or roll our own?”  Just my $0.02)

Is demanding membership to access the OPC specifications the right solution?  Someone like IEC would say yes, where XML would say no.  The important thing is what do you say?  As Randy pointed out on the forum “OPC is a member driven organization and if members believe that the specs should be made available for free then these members need to make their feelings known”.  I’ll make it easy for everyone.  Post a comment that answers these questions:

• Are you an OPC member?
•  Does ‘pay-to-play’ mean better quality products? (i.e. member products are built on reference code, interoperability tested and certified.)
•  Do you agree with the current policy of ‘pay-to-view’?
• Why/Why not?