List of Drivers Currently Supporting Connection Sharing:

• ABB Totalflow
• Allen-Bradley DF1
• DNP 3.0 Master Serial
• Enron Modbus Serial
• Fisher ROC Serial
• Fisher ROC Plus Serial
• GE CCM
• GE SNP
• GE SNPX
• Lufkin Modbus Serial
• Modbus ASCII Serial
• Modbus RTU Master Serial
• Omni Flow Computer Serial
• Siemens S5 (AS511)
• Siemens S7-200
• Weatherford 8500 Serial

Requirements:

• The channel must use a serial driver that performs the function of communications master.
• The channel must be configured to use a modem or COM port.
• Modem use requires the channel to use the auto-dial feature.

Network Mode - Settings added for use when using both connection sharing and the Scheduler Plug-in.

When using the TOPServer Real-Time Scheduler Plug-in with drivers supporting connection sharing, the following Network Mode options are available

• Load Balanced Mode channels communication in a fixed order.
• Priority Mode network ownership is determined by the type of operations pending on the channel. 
  
  
  
  

Shared Connection Usage

When using a shared connection among multiple channels, the underlying serial port or modem will be opened when needed for communications and closed when the specified number of transactions have completed. For modem communications, this means that the connection will be dropped. The modem will return to an idle state between uses. If no reads or writes are pending on a channel that is sharing a connection, the port will remain closed and the next channel in line to use it will be given its turn (and so on).

New Configuration Views

When utilizing connection sharing, users can display the Project View in Classic View, Drivers View, and Connections View by selecting from the Project Tree Organization option in the View menu.

Alternately, the view can be toggled using the buttons above the event log.

Classic View - The default view option.  This is the standard view you are used to seeing with a channel/device/group hierarchy structure.

Drivers View - This view displays a top-level tier for each driver currently being used in the project, with underlying structure for the channels and devices using each driver.

Connection View - This view displays a top-level tier for each virtual network currently existing in the project, with underlying structure for each physical connection port and the underlying channels and devices using that physical connection.