Where would the computer and engineering world be without Three Letter Acronyms (TLAs)?  For one thing we wouldn’t have OPC.  Actually according to the all knowing Wikipeida, OPC is technically an initialism (i.e., all the letters are pronounced as letters) as opposed to meeting the true definition of acronym (which requires it to be pronounced as a single word, as in DOS). Now that I think of it, OPC doesn’t really fit initialism either since the letters of OPC don’t really stand for anything anymore.  But I digress…

The TLA I’m talking about today is MIP, which stands for the MatrikonOPC Integrators Program.  Often the people on the front line of OPC implementations are system integrators and the folks at MatrikonOPC realize that while data connectivity represents a fraction of integrators project scope, it also poses a disproportionate project risk due to the inherent difficulty of establishing multi-vendor communications.  When faced with OPC challenges, integrators need a better plan than a skyward plea of ‘Oh Please Connect’ to the fickle gods of connectivity.  Based on years of OPC expertise and countless projects supporting integrators, MatrikonOPC is offering MIPs an alternative that provides:

·          optimal data connectivity architectures

·          the right connectivity software and utilities

·          experienced live support

·          comprehensive OPC sales and technical training

·          other good stuff…

Now since there are only 17,576 possible TLA’s (24,336 if you allow the last ‘letter’ to be a number) there are bound to be multiple meanings for a TLA.  Therefore MIP is not to be confused with Mortgage Insurance Program.  (I bet a lot of people out there are wishing they thought of that before the whole credit crisis meltdown).  I suppose you can consider joining the MIP program as a type of insurance against having your OPC projects go south on you. If your project involves advanced OPC concepts like redundancy, guaranteed data delivery or security, it’s nice to have someone to discuss all the options with BEFORE you’re on-site and behind the eight-ball at crunch time.

The gamers out there (or those high-falutin’ Latin speakers) will recognize MIP as standing for the Latin “multum in parvo” or literally “much in little”.  Typically this refers to increasing granularity the resolution of texture maps, but the “much in little” theme works for the MIP program too.  Think of it as getting a whole lot of value for relatively little input or it could mean the increasing levels of support through the Silver, Gold and Platinum options.

I don’t know if the powers that be have decided if the MIP program is an initialism like V.I.P or acronym that rhymes with hip.  I’ll leave that up to you to choose. Regardless of how you think of it, it sounds like a good thing to me. I’ll sign off with a little food for thought on TLA’s from author Douglas Adams who remarked: “The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form takes three times longer to say than what it’s short for.”  Think about it.

I just came across this post on Control.com. and I just had to put it up.   The post started out as a poll for favorite types of field instruments, but Carl Ellis tossed OPC into the mix.

Posted by Carl Ellis on 17 November, 2008 – 9:19 pm

Favorite Field instrument:

1) Plain old thermocouple, for its simplicity and durability.

2) Any of the modern “smart” pressure transmitters with HART.

The long term stability is just fantastic for those of us old enough to remember the quarterly cal routines with the zero and span pots.

The ease of setup via HART is fantastic.

3) Not a field instrument, but I love OPC. Getting the instrument driver out of the HMI software and into the specialty realm of “OPC server” vendors has been fantastic. As good as getting the print driver out of the DOS application and onto the printer manufacturer where it belongs.

Three cheers for OPC.

Carl

Couldn’t have said it better myself.  Three cheers for OPC indeed!  I don’t think I know Carl, although if he loves OPC, I’m sure our paths must have crossed at sometime and clearly he sees the benefits of OPC.  I’d like to hear more from him on how and why OPC has helped his life.  Was it the wide range of connectivity options? Bringing industry wide standards to a particular business vertical? A particular OPC product?

What about the rest of you out there?  Would you rank OPC as one of your top three connectivity options?  How about the Systems Integrators out there?  Do you see OPC a blessing or a burden to your business?

Ever have one of those ‘D’oh’ moments?  You know what I’m talking about.  One of those moments when you realize something that is intuitively obvious to the most causal of observers, yet seems to have eluded your razor sharp observation for an unconscionable amount of time. For me it was realizing the important role of SNMP in the building automation world. I’m sure the term SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is familiar to many of you who have any interaction at all with the IT world.  SNMP is the de facto standard for monitoring IT type equipment like switches, routers, repeaters and such.  Of course there are many Network Management System (NMS) applications that are designed to monitor and manage this vast sea of IT assets. I’ve always been aware of the fact that companies that have a high competency in HVAC and BMS protocols also provide products with SNMP capability. I just never bother to connect the dots and ask WHY? The D’oh moment was the realization that many BMS systems are SNMP enabled which closely ties the management of IT and building assets.  Many building control devices, much like IT assets, are equipped to communicate via the SNMP protocol.  Therefore the building devices can be recognized and managed with standard, of-the-shelf NMS applications, like IBM Tivoli, HP OpenView, Aprisma Spectrum, and Micromuse Netcool.  After all managing a sea of PCs and routers is really no different from managing a cloud of building controls. 

All well and good, but why are we talking about SNMP on an OPC blog?  Good question.  Since connecting the enterprise is allow about integration, many users are pulling information from their control systems, security systems, building automation controls and IT assets into the same place.  Sometimes that’s an NMS console; sometime it’s a HMI/SCADA system or a historian.  Users need to be able to integrate both OPC enabled and SNMP enabled devices and applications.  That’s where products like the MatrikonOPC Server for SNMP (which connects OPC clients with SNMP agents) and the MatrikonOPC Agent for SNMP (which exposes OPC DA and A&E servers as SNMP managed devices) come in.  Using OPC and SNMP as complementary protocols, users can easily integrate OPC-based automation systems within network or Enterprise management environments, building and process automation systems.  This is becoming increasingly more popular as companies try to ‘get greener’ and better manage their production and building systems.

So did everyone out there know that SNMP and building automation were so closely related? Was I the only one who just thought of SNMP as an ‘IT’ protocol?  I’d be interested to hear from anyone who is using SNMP and OPC as part of their building automation solutions.  Do you use OPC-in-SNMP-out or vise-versa?

Looking for some new stuff to explore this week?  The venerable OPC Explorer has gotten a new update and some neat new features.  On connection to an OPC server, the Status panel now shows what OPC interfaces a server supports, including OPC DA, HDA, A&E and OPC Security.   OPC Explorer now provides an interface to connect to servers using the OPC Security options, and when connected to a MatrikonOPC server you can launch server configuration panels and security setting dialogs.   The GUI has been streamlined a bit, some minor bugs squashed and other routine maintenance items.  Check it out.

I’ve been an OPC Explorer myself lately.  There were great turn outs at both the MatrikonOPC European User Group conference in Barcelona and the OPC Developer Conference and Workshop in Munich.  Everyone had plenty of opportunity to explore OPC implementations, how others are using OPC and OPC UA today.

If you are looking to test drive the new OPC Explorer and aren’t quite sure what OPC is all about, you’d be interested in attending the upcoming OPC Foundation Training Seminar in Richmond, VA on November 13^th.  Details here.

And last but not least, the OPC Foundation wants to explore your brain a little bit.  To help guide the OPC Foundations strategic direction you can provide your thoughts and feedback on the OPC Market Survey.