It’s been a busy week at the OPC TAC meeting and Microsoft Manufacturing Operations Forum.   Progress is going well with OPC UA with several vendors (including MatrikonOPC) who will be releasing OPC UA products this year.   The focus at the Manufacturing Forum is more on how companies are using OPC today, what their pain points are with respect to integration, security and patch management.   There are many major end user companies attending who are also OPC users, such as ExxonMobil,  Cargill, Chevron, 3M and many more.

In addition to end users being able to discuss their key issues, Microsoft also showcases their next generation products.   The new products include SharePoint, PerformancePoint, Windows2008 Server, etc.   Of course with new products comes new functionality, but also new challenges for users in terms of deployment.  For example Windows 2008 server will be the last 32 bit platform.  Will all existing 32 bit applications play nicely on the 64 platforms?   2008 Server also offers a Core Server install option, which is basically a ‘mini’ install that only enables core services and applications to reduce the software footprint and increase security.  What needs to be done to get software applications running on this? So of course application support is a huge concern for end users.   Arguably the biggest challenge facing manufactures today is handling patch management and OS migration on the plant floor.  Whether it’s XP to Vista, Server 2003 to Server 2008, (or for some even NT to anything newer )

Of course OPC products fall under this umbrella too.  Deployment and support of OPC products on next generation operating systems and/or interacting with new enterprise applications is a concern for implementers.    This means that not only do end users require quality, robust, Certified OPC products from their OPC vendor, they need good, quality support.   Responsive, knowledge OPC experts,  24/7 availability and a global presence are just some of the requirements users need from their OPC support.  As the discussions show from the Manufacturing Forum, users also want assurances that their OPC products will continue to work as expected after a Microsoft security patch or other vendor software upgrade.   One way to ensure this is to work with OPC vendors who partner closely with the hardware vendors and validate their software on each new platform or generation.

What’s your experience?  How big a role does knowing you have access to good support factor in when planning product upgrades or deployment?   What risk management process do you at your facility? On line redundancy solutions for roll out?  Virtualization or other test beds?  Scheduled shut downs?