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The
Gateway
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| August 2004 |
Volume 2, Number 7
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Software
Services and System Solutions for the Enterprise |
Welcome
to The Gateway, a monthly newsletter highlighting products,
services, customers, and partners of The S4 Group, Inc. The
purpose of this monthly newsletter is to provide information on
Enterprise Management technology and the integration of non-It
systems into enterprise environments.
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The
main value is an open Ethernet system allows multi vendor
integration and spreading out the expensive fiber optic runs to
solve multiple process control and monitoring functions.
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Interview
With Craig Schiro of InfoTech Engineering
Brian
Jones, Editor of The Gateway, recently conducted an interview with
Craig Schiro of InfoTech Engineering. InfoTech Engineering is a
professional engineering company registered in Louisiana and Texas
specializing in Automation, Process Control, and Fieldbus
automation for the oil and gas industry leveraged by experience in
Information and Internet technologies.
BJ: Mr.
Schiro, would you please provide a brief background on yourself
and InfoTech Engineering for our readers?
CS:
InfoTech began in 2001 with several engineers with unique
experience in advanced process control and plant information
systems. The combined experience of the senior staff exceed 150
year in the petrochemical industries. We saw Ethernet, TCP/IP,
commodity operating systems along with other open controls
protocols as enabling technologies to build standards based open
process control and monitoring systems. Chief among the open
technologies are Profibus, Foundation Fieldbus, ASi bus,
Modbus/TCP/IP and OPC. We have use this pervasive technology to
address analyzer networks, Plant Power management systems, tank
automation and controls.
The
full interview can be read here.
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The N2 Switch extends and enhances the operation of a N2 bus in ways
never before possible. |
N2
Router
Status Update
This
week we received the Pre-Release Candidate 1 build for the N2 Switch XP
(software only version of the product). Our strategic partner, and
product developer, Obermeier Software performed extensive systems
level testing before releasing the product to us for final
pre-beta testing. We are calling this build Pre-RC1 only because
some of the on-board documentation has not been reformatted to be
compatible with the automation.net framework.
 The
N2 Switch extends and enhances the operation of a N2 bus in ways
never before possible. It contains all the logic necessary to
merge multiple N2 networks into a Virtual N2 network, extend a N2
bus over a TCP/IP Ethernet Intranet, auto discover N2 devices, and
perform N2 Network performance monitoring. N2 Switch configuration
can be performed locally or remotely. The N2 Switch is the base
upon which our entire N2 Router product family is built.
During
our pre-beta testing we are very closely validating that our
functional requirements specification was followed and making sure
that all features operate according to design in a live Metasys®
environment. Additional focus is being placed on usability,
documentation, troubleshooting capabilities, N2 autodiscovery, and
N2 network performance monitoring.
More
information here.
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We
welcome you to your first issue of The Gateway and would like to
invite you to browse our web site and contact us for more
information about the S4 Group N2 Switch, the BACnet-N2 Router ,
and the rest of our N2 Router product family. |
Welcome
Tridium Independent System Integrators and VARs
We
have received multiple inquiries from a number of you who want a
clean and efficient way to interface to existing Johnson Controls
Metasys® installations. Several organizations have
signed up to test our BACnet OPC Router as soon as it is
available. If you’re among those who are already signed up
to perform testing, we thank you for your interest and support.
For the rest of you, we didn't want to miss an important
opportunity to introduce you to our soon to be available N2 Router
family of products so we spent a lot of time this month searching
the web, asking for referrals, and trying to seek out like minded
organizations who believe in open systems and customer focused
solutions in the BAS world.
We
welcome you to your first issue of The Gateway and would like to
invite you to browse our web site and contact us for more
information about the S4 Open: N2 Switch, the BACnet-N2 Router ,
and the rest of our N2 Router product family. We are in the final
stages of testing before product release and we think you will be
just as excited about these products as we are.
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Remote SNMP-OPC Server
Registration |
Tech Hint - Remote Registration for SNMP-OPC Server
In most cases OPC Clients include a browser to interactively navigate to a local or remote OPC server and connect to process points on that server. There are a few cases where older client software, or custom OPC client applications, do not have this feature built in but they still need to access the SNMP-OPC Server on a remote PC. For those cases we have provided a sample registration script for the SNMP-OPC Server which you can modify to reflect your environment, and use it to register the remote SNMP-OPC Server so that your local OPC Client can access it easily. This script can be found under the Support category in the Downloads area of our web site
http://www.thes4group.com/Downloads/Downloads.htm#Support. |
Because
of the underlying automation.net framework supporting the SNMP-OPC Server
other upstream and downstream protocol adapters can be expected in future
releases. |
Update – SNMP-OPC Server
Obermeier Software has
been investing a lot of effort into preparing and testing a minor update to
the SNMP-OPC Server. Most of the fixes for reported maintenance issues have
already been coded and tested. Numerous customer requested functionality
enhancements have been added. This release will include a MODBUS TCP/IP
and MODBUS RS485 downstream adapter. Because of the underlying automation.net framework supporting the SNMP-OPC Server other upstream and
downstream protocol adapters can be expected in future releases.
Testing has been going
very well in Europe. We will provide you with more details, and an expected
release schedule in a future issue of The Gateway. Those of you who
have requested enhancements, or have been working with us to isolate and
repair maintenance issues, may be contacted in the near future about an
opportunity to become an early adopter of the software. |
Please
send comments or submissions to:
The
S4 Group, Inc.
Attn:
Steve Jones
2555
Jefferson Ave.
Ogden,
UT 84401
Phone: (801)
621-1970
E-mail:
sejones@thes4group.com
www.thes4group.com
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About
The Gateway
The
Gateway will be distributed on a monthly basis. You can view
previous issues, news items and press releases at
S4
Group News.
Please
share The Gateway with colleagues and associates. Add them to the
e-mail list on the The S4 Group home page at
http://www.thes4group.com/
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Building Automation
Non-IT System Integration
Enterprise Integration
S4 Open Appliance Applications
SNMP OPC Gateway Applications
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Gateway Vol. 2 - 7
