Welcome to the March 2007 edition of OPConnect, the official newsletter of the OPC Foundation. With this issue, we begin the third year of publishing OPConnect with our media partner, Automation World.OPConnect was launched in 2005 to promote, educate and build awareness for OPC technology. OPC is a standardized interface by which data is passed between different computer systems running on Microsoft Windows platforms. Since its inception in 1996, OPC has become one of the most widely used standards for sharing data among disparate computer and control systems.The Foundation has made an ongoing commitment to OPC evangelism, and it is my pleasure to announce six additional educational opportunities in 2007 for users and developers alike to learn more about the benefits of OPC technology.Targeted at end-users and system integrators, these one-day Training Seminars focus on current OPC technologies, including OPC DA, Historical Data Access and Alarm and Events. Also included is a one-hour session on the latest OPC specification known as Unified Architecture (UA), which is taking OPC openness to new levels. Registration for the 2007 seminars is now being accepted at www.opcfoundation.org/seminars.Builds on 2006 SuccessThe 2006 seminars had been highly successful in taking OPC to a new audience and the aim for 2007 was to extend knowledge of the rich opportunities available from OPC to an even wider audience. OPC Servers and Clients literally provide a no-fuss solution to easily passing data between PC applications. OPC delivers openness and connectivity at low cost.Inclusion of the latest OPC specification, Unified Architecture (UA) is significant. Launching now, UA breaks down even more barriers. With UA, computers running any operating system can inter-operate, and firewall restrictions are removed. UA uses a services-based architecture that opens up many new and extremely exciting possibilities for enterprise-wide, and inter-enterprise, connectivity. It is also easily integrated with our existing specs so that, in addition to learning about the benefits of current technology, delegates attending these seminars will gain an insight into how current OPC systems and products can be migrated into our envisioned future.The Seminar schedule for 2007 includes Greenville, S.C., on February 21; Dallas, Texas, on March 13, Detroit, Mich., on April 25; Philadelphia, Pa., in July, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in September; and Denver, Co., in October. Current sponsors for these events include Beckhoff, Canary Labs, Cyberlogic, GE Fanuc, ICONICS, InduSoft, Kepware, Matrikon, Open Automation Systems, Siemens, Softing, Software Toolbox and Yokogawa.I invite anyone involved in data gathering to join us at one of our seminars to learn more.Visit the OPC web site at www.opcfoundation.org to get more details and to register for the seminars.
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