Description

Learn about each Ignition module and the functionality they provide for both the HMI/SCADA modules.

Video recorded using: Ignition 7.9

Transcript

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[00:00] Since Ignition is a modular platform, let's take a look at all the different modules and see what they do. The OPC-UA module is a cross-platform, high-performance OPC-UA server with a pluggable driver model. This comes with drivers for many popular protocols such as Allen-Bradley Ethernet, Siemens Ethernet, and Modbus Ethernet. You can also connect as an OPC-UA client to any third-party OPC server such as Kepware or Matrikon. The OPC-COM module exposes COM based OPC-DA servers to Ignition. So if you have any older OPC-DA servers, Ignition can't communicate with them. Additionally, this module provides support for OPC-HDA. SQL Bridge is a transaction group manager that allows you to store OPC values into a single database. Additionally, data can be synchronized bi-directionally. So you can take values from your database and push them down to your PLC. Furthermore, if you have any stored procedures configured in your database, this module allows you to easily call those from Ignition. Next is the Vision module. This is the module that allows you to launch real time clients. So you can see real time values from any of your connected devices or show historical data. The Reporting module allows you to build and generate reports. You can then create actions that run on schedule, so you can automatically email out reports, print them out or save them. The Mobile module allows Vision clients to be viewed on mobile devices. Most mobile devices cannot natively run Java applications so they cannot run Vision clients. However, this module works around that limitation and allows you to view and interact with client from your phone or tablet. The Alarm Notification module allows email notifications to be sent out for your alarms. This also includes alarm pipelines which are a flowing logic that the alarm takes. Additionally, your users can acknowledge alarms directly from the email. SMS Notification is an extension of the Alarm Notification Module. SMS Notification allows you to send text messages to your users instead of emails. Users can also acknowledge alarms from the message by responding with a code. This module does require a cellular modem which is not included. The Voice Notification module is also an extension of the Alarm Notification module. Voice Notification will call your users on alarm conditions instead of emailing them. It contains a powerful text-to-speech engine so you're not limited to a list of pre-canned words, but additional voices and different languages are available. This does require a SIP-compatible VOIP service. SFC which stands for Sequential Function Charts allow you to create a flowing logic to execute multiple Python scripts. If you have several complicated scripting tasks you need to execute in succession without any overlap, normally you can run into timing problems. The SFC module greatly simplifies this architecture and allows you to control exactly when to execute each task. The Web Browser module allows you to embed a web browser directly into a Vision client. So if your users need to log in to some other web-based system, they can do so without minimizing or even closing the client. Tag Historian is a high-performance data logger with a focus on efficiency. This module automatically creates and manages the necessary database tables to store the data. So history can be in tables and tags without the need to manually create new partitions or pruning tables in the database later on. Additionally, you can easily store history for each tag into multiple databases simultaneously. Next is the Enterprise Administration module. The facilities with multiple Ignition Gateways, the Enterprise Administration module allows you to manage and monitor each Gateway. You can configure tasks for each connected Gateway such as creating backups or pushing projects from one Gateway to another. Additionally, this module will monitor the performance of each connected Gateway and send out alarm notifications when there is a problem. We also have strategic partners that provide more modules to extend Ignition's functionality. Sepasoft has several MES Modules such as the LEE and SPC Modules, while Cirrus Link has modules that focus on MQTT such as the MQTT Distributor and the MQTT Engine Modules. You can find these modules, as well as documentation, on our downloads page. As we can see, each module provides some different functionality. Additionally, all the modules work together seamlessly. In situations where one module requires another module, such as viewing historical data from Tag Historian in a Vision client, there's no additional configuration required to make the two modules communicate. This is what makes Ignition so flexible. You can start small with just a couple of modules that provide the functionality you need. Later on, if you need to expand, you can easily add new modules.

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