OPC Xi: Is it Dead Yet?

I just have just one word for OPC-Xi ... Why? Okay, I get it, it has taken forever to get the OPC-UA show on the road. And yes, Xi is a quick and dirty solution to get around classic OPC which is based on DCOM. But it's a short-term solution in a field that demands longer-term solutions.

Forget the fact that Xi, like classic OPC, is vendor specific (depends on Microsoft technology). The bigger point is how many standards do we need? It's already to the point of madness. Isn't that the point of OPC standardization?

OPC-UA is now an accomplished fact. We recently attended the OPC-Interop conference in Nuremberg, Germany and were pleased with the heavy attendance. In fact, we successfully tested Ignition OPC-UA against nine other UA servers and ten other UA clients. Commercial products are now available from a large and ever growing number of vendors.

The more telling point is that OPC-Xi has no validation testing available (to my knowledge). And there are no interop conferences to ensure compatibility (also to my knowledge - correct me if I'm wrong). So is there really interoperability? I don't know. Take your chances.

NEWS FLASH – OPC-Xi is DEAD! Actually, it has been renamed to OPC .NET 3.0 (WCF Edition). Man, that is a mouthful to pronounce. As I was writing this one of our developers pointed out this recent change to me. By the way, WCF is the new Microsoft replacement for DCOM.

Whither Silverlight?

A number of HMI / SCADA companies have now built their products upon Silverlight, and while this creates some awesome graphics, I have to standby what I've always said about building (at least in our industry) on the tumultuous Microsoft base. Last week Microsoft announced a shift of emphasis from Silverlight to HTML5. I shouldn't have been shocked because I've been predicting this, but I WAS shocked because Silverlight just hasn't been around that long.

I think it's fine that Microsoft shifts with the times and I think it is a particularly smart move for them to shift toward HTML5, but in the HMI, SCADA and MES industry such rapid shifts spell disaster. This is because in our industry things have to last a while. I think building HMI, SCADA and MES software on top technologies that change every two or three years is like building skyscrapers on top of the San Andreas fault line.