Welcome to the November 2009 edition of OPConnect, the official newsletter of the OPC Foundation. 2009 has been a very challenging year economically for both the OPC Foundation and for many of the OPC Foundation members. Because of the recession, we put our road show program on hold this year, as well as the OPC Foundation’s participation in many of the industry trade shows. What we learned was that these events are very important to vendors and end-users in the marketing and evangelism of the OPC vision.
And so, I’m very excited to announce that we plan to restart the OPC training events in 2010, and we will hold a special OPC international conference in Amsterdam during the year. We will also continue to host the very successful developer workshops and interoperability workshops, which further expand the adoption and validation of the OPC technology. I invite you to regularly check theOPC基金会网站for upcoming event announcements and schedules.
OPC基金会任务
我经常被问到，OPC基金会的任务是什么？OPC基金会的任务是提供最佳的规格，技术和相应的过程，以促进安全，可靠的互操作性。这使我们的成员能够提供在多页面多供应商方案中使用的最高质量产品。
After defining the mission of the OPC Foundation, it makes sense to ask, how do we measure success? My standard answer is: Success is measured by level of adoption. OPC is dedicated to solving the problems that end-users want solved with respect to multivendor interoperability, which in turn provides a solid foundation for the vendor community to actually deliver products and services. The OPC Foundation is not interested in developing non-pragmatic technology that end-users and vendors do not want or need. This is not a research endeavor; this is all about increasing revenue and decreasing costs. My personal responsibility as president and executive director is to facilitate the OPC Foundation vendors’ successful delivery and deployment of products that clearly leverage the OPC Foundation technology.
We are dedicated to collaboration and continuing to enhance the portfolio of specifications, technology and corresponding processes that will expand the reach of secure, reliable interoperability. The OPC Foundation has been actively engaged in many areas outside of the typical industrial automation arena, including building automation, security, home automation and energy, such as the smart grid. By collaborating with other standards organizations, we have been able to leverage the infrastructure of OPC to promote interoperability through partnerships.
A good example of this is the key initiative to enhance the OPC Foundation portfolio through the inclusion of the Express Interface (Xi) technology. Xi is a client-server architecture, based on the Microsoft .NET framework, that provides secure and robust real-time and historical data transfer between Xi client and Xi servers, regardless of their network location. A group of OPC vendors are developing a solution to integrate classic OPC, which uses the Microsoft Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) for data transport, and address problems of security, reliability and complex configuration on Microsoft platforms in a .NET environment.
I encourage you to actively participate in the many OPC Foundation programs and establish regular dialogues with the OPC Foundation staff. For all administrative topics and discussions, please contact Mike Bryant, administrative director, atmichael.bryant@opcfoundation.org。For technical topics and discussions, please contact Jim Luth, technical director, atjim.luth@opcfoundation.org。有关与营销相关的主题，请联系营销副总裁Manny Mandrusiak ATmanny.mandrusiak@opcfoundation.org。有关合规性主题，请联系我们的认证总监Nathan Pocock，ATNathan.Pocock@opcfoundation.org。And, most importantly, for anything related to your OPC Foundation membership, contact Lynne Froehlich atLynne.Froehlich@opcfoundation.org。
OPC基金会网站，atwww.opcfoundation.org，是找到OPC和OPC UA产品的绝佳来源。它包括一个在线产品目录和有关供应商的信息，这些供应商已在独立认证测试实验室中认证其OPC产品。有关OPC工作组和财团的更多信息，您还可以访问OPC基金会网站，或向我发送您的想法和评论。Thomas.Burke@OPCfoundation.org。
