Full Support for Wonderware SuiteLink and FastDDE
The TOP Server's support of Wonderware SuiteLink simplifies the task of connecting the server with Wonderware applications such as InTouch, Historian and System Platform. By using the Wonderware connectivity toolkit, our TOP Server can simultaneously provide OPC and FastDDE/SuiteLink connectivity to address your communications needs (make sure to select this interface from the Native Client Interfaces when installing TOP Server). With built-in support of these Client/Server technologies, the TOP Server allows you to quickly access device data without the need to use an intermediary software bridge (i.e. OI Gateway, formerly known as FSGateway) as is done when using a strictly OPC only communications server. For Wonderware users, the familiar look and feel of FastDDE/SuiteLink tag database setup is maintained. Backwards compatibility for legacy DDE is also supported.

Intellution NIO/PDB native interface supported - no OPC Power Tool needed!
Direct connection to the iFix Process Database allows you to skip the OPC Power Tool. Enabling the iFix PDB interface in TOP Server under File | Project Properties allows TOP Server to appear as a native Intellution driver named "IDS" (make sure to select this interface from the Native Client Interfaces when installing TOP Server). Never before has connecting TOP Server to Intellution iFix been easier.

Legacy Support for DDE
While OPC has become the most common choice for communications drivers in the automation market, we realize that not everyone can replace their client software with the latest OPC technology. For this reason, TOP Server is one of the few OPC servers on the market to also simultaneously support Wonderware's FastDDE and Suitelink interfaces, Rockwell's AdvanceDDE and Microsoft's standard DDE interfaces for connecting the TOP Server to your client application. With the TOP Server, you can connect to your legacy DDE clients today and move smoothly to the world of OPC when you are ready and not have to worry about replacing or re-configuring the communications driver connecting you to your production machinery.

Other Key Features in the TOP Server

Runtime Configuration Changes A very unique feature to this product is the ability to change your configuration while the server is running and has clients connected. The connected client application has access to an expansive group of system tags that allow the client to request the TOP Server to change a number of different settings at runtime.

Online Full Time The TOP Server allows you to make changes to your tag database configuration at any time. In older versions, you could be online, but not add tags, or be offline to add tags but not read data. With the TOP Server you make changes when you need to, on the fly.

User Management With powerful features such as online changes, you want to make sure you manage who is allowed to make certain changes. The User Manager in the TOP Server lets you define what different people can change and update in the servers' configuration.

Security Policies Plug-in Aside from standard user management, the included Security Policies plug-in for TOP Server provides even further granular control of access by users with respect to what changes can and cannot be made by certain users, including all the way down to the individual channel, device and even tag level. You must be using an OPC UA client application in order to benefit from this plug in as the OPC UA standard supports passing OPC UA authentication.

Tag Management You want to organize your tag database around your process. With the TOP Server we've taken full advantage of OPC grouping capabilities to let you segregate and organize your tags the way you want them. Drag and Drop configuration lets you quickly move, add, copy large numbers of tags quickly and easily. CSV (Ascii comma-delimited) format import and export lets you bring in your tags from an Excel worksheet or export them, edit them in bulk and bring them back in.

Tag Scaling Display your data in units that are meaningful to you. The TOP Server supports Linear and Square Root tag scaling. You define the display format and the engineering units display string to meet your needs.

Diagnostics The TOP Server family of communications products provides real-time OPC diagnostics for all tag read/write operations between TOP Server and your OPC clients (DA and UA) to keep tabs on what is going on in the server. For those tough to debug communications problems, you can turn on our communication diagnostics and capture protocol packets off to disk to find out what is really happening between the computer and the hardware device.

Redundancy The TOP Server includes a Media-Level Redundancy plug-in at no additional cost (simply select it from the list of available option while installing TOP Server). Easily configure redundant paths for redundant devices and redundant communication connections to the same device as part of your device configurations in TOP Server. Automatic failover handling is flexible, with multiple options for how to trigger a failover.

Other Powerful Features in the TOP Server include:

• OPC Tag Browsing
• Modem support built-in for serial drivers
• Ethernet encapsulation support built-in for most serial drivers
• Auto-demotion (i.e. slow polling) support
• Extensive help files and examples of how to use the TOP Server with popular OPC clients
• Visual Basic OPC client sample code
• 32-bit high performance multi-threaded drivers
• Run as a Windows service for unattended operation
• Works with any OPC client or DDE, AdvancedDDE client application
• Works with Wonderware's FastDDE and SuiteLink interfaces
• For details on additional functionality and optional features click here