OPC [OLE for Process Control]
Features of OPC
1.Discovers OPC servers on the network/PC 2.View the tags available in the server 3.Tags could be grouped into a hirearchy 4.Read one or more tags 5.Write to one or more tags 6.Subscribe to tags and receive value change notiifcations 7.Easily identify good/bad data
Benefits of using OPC technology
1.Vendors were no longer required to maintain extensive device protocol libraries 2.High quality and affordable device-drivers emerged 3.More specialized clients emerged 4.Developer toolkit emerged for rapid development of custom applications that could also integrate with the OPC infrastructure 5.End-users could mix and match numerous vendor products to achieve the best overall solution