As a provider of an open-technology based, data-centric software platform for SCADA, HMI, MES and IIoT applications, Inductive Automation has been focused on the convergence of IT and OT (operations technology) since the company’s inception, said Don Pearson, chief strategy officer at Inductive Automation. Referencing the company's first product, FactorySQL, Pearson noted that this product was designed to move data from PLCs to SQL databases for use by any department. “For us it was never an ‘us versus them’ issue between OT and IT,” he said. “IT was always brought into our projects because the solutions need to work for everybody. Ignition evolved as a bridge between these points.”
皮尔森（Pearson）在本周在加利福尼亚州福尔索姆（Folsom）举行的《归纳自动化》（Automation）2018 INDICE社区会议（ICC）的开幕主题演讲中发表了这些评论，该公司即将发布IGNITION 8。
“Ignition 8 builds on everything we’ve done, but version 8 is a new beginning because it lays the groundwork for new phase of innovation,” said Carl Gould, co-director of development at Inductive Automation. He stressed that, even with all the new changes, the software will remain familiar by adhering to the company’s platform-based modular architecture built on open standards such as HTML5, SQL, Java, Python, MQTT and OPC UA.
Detailing the software’s new advances, Gould, along with Colby Clegg, co-director of development at Inductive Automation, highlighted several features of the new software that will be available in February 2019, such as:
- A new mobile module known as Perspective;
- A modified project resource system compatible with external source control tools;
- 改进的标签系统，用于改善复杂数据类型的处理；
- More memory efficient UDT tags, resulting in changes being incorporated faster; and
- 15倍进口速度更快。
为了解释以透视图为IGNITION的移动能力所取得的进步，Gould首先指出，归纳自动化首先引入了版本7.2中的点火模块。但是，从透视图中，点火设备现在将具有一个移动模块，并具有“可以在任何地方运行并立即运行的应用程序的快速设计环境屏幕夹和变焦功能，可以在带有Web浏览器的任何设备上本地运行，并自动适应任何尺寸的屏幕。”他说。“它是从头开始建造的，是专为工业应用而构建的一流的，纯净的，完整的移动解决方案。而且，您不必是一名专业设计师就可以使用它来构建专业应用程序，而只是拖放。”
Perspective还允许用户合并内置移动设备功能。Clegg补充说，用户可以“利用移动设备的触摸输入，GPS，相机和其他传感器的全部功能来创建下一代智能工业应用程序”。
Considering Ignition’s Java-based history, it was surprising to hear Gould point out that Perspective does not use Java, as it’s entirely HTML5-based. During the ICC event, he highlighted the fact that Java is “undergoing big changes. It’s moving from being something end users install on their own into [being] a core library for developers to use in building programs. It’ll be more like C++. Java will be embedded into products in a way that you won’t have to worry about it.”
克莱格（Clegg）在《 IGNITION 8》中谈到新项目系统时说，新版本具有改进的并发编辑系统，该系统将“允许多个用户同时在同一项目上工作，而不会互相锁定。[这将]帮助您的团队更快，更合作地工作。它还与行业标准源控制工具兼容，以使易于恢复以前的版本，解决代码冲突并跟踪代码库的更改。[这]使得定义共享诸如Windows，数据类型，脚本和主题之类的资源的总体公司项目，这些公司可以继承本地网站。顶部的更改可以降低到所有项目，或者在每个本地站点被覆盖和定制。”
点火8中的另一个重要进展是，该软件现有的OPC UA服务器堆栈已切换到OPC的下一代MILO堆栈，该堆栈支持自定义数据类型和功能调用。
尽管点火8直到2月才能可用，但克莱格说，Beta版现已可用。Beta的用户将看到新的构建每晚部署，并可以访问私人论坛支持。If you’re not up for being a beta tester, but are interested in Perspective, Travis Cox, co-director of sales engineering at Inductive Automation, said a version of it is available for download now and “it is pre-loaded with a demo that showcases the new features.”
Summing up all the advances in Ignition 8, and allaying potential user concerns about the readiness of such a major upgrade, Gould noted that “lots of people are wary of big ol’ dot-0 releases, but we do a lot of work on the QA (quality assurance) side during beta releases. QA is embedded into our development team—they are involved from the beginning; we don't just throw it over the wall to them. Automated test systems and test cases from QA are developed and worked on with developers during the entire process and every single change introduced goes through several check points, such as peer review and feature verification. Plus, we’ve tripled the size of our QA team in the past year.”
