Scada platform eases information access

Building on the success of the award-winning iFIX Scada technology platform, iFIX 3.5 introduces powerful new project management, data accessibility and security features.

Building on the success of the award-winning iFIX Scada technology platform, GE Fanuc Automation has released iFIX 3.5, introducing powerful new project management, data accessibility and security features.

Through this new functionality, manufacturers can reduce development time, improve enterprise connectivity and gain greater overall control of their production processes.

"As plant floor systems become increasingly pervasive, there has been a greater focus on streamlining HMI/Scada application development, enhancing application management and security capabilities, and increasing access to information.

especially from thin clients, mobile devices and the web", said John Pritchard, President PLC/Solutions, GE Fanuc Automation Europe.

"With iFIX 3.5, we're enabling systems integrators and end users alike to take their capabilities one step further in each of these areas".

With companies implementing multiple automation solutions in each plant environment (eg one HMI/Scada application controls the production line, another controls plant utilities, a third manages information flow to higher level business systems etc), today's intricate manufacturing operations often require users to manage numerous and vastly different applications.

iFIX 3.5 lets users develop HMI/Scada applications by organising them into projects.

Users can easily create projects; manage project directories; backup, restore and auto-populate project directories with default files and more.

Once the projects have been created, it is simple to alternate between multiple projects - all from one development station.

As a result, corporations and system integrators can greatly increase the agility and productivity of their development personnel.

Installing an application and ensuring that application will remain intact over time is critical to troubleshooting, long-term support and corporate security.

To ensure application integrity, iFIX 3.5 comes complete with an application validator utility - a software tool designed to automatically document any changes made to system files or utilities (iFIX or otherwise) and provide an alert when such an event occurs.

This reduces the likelihood that installations can inadvertently or intentionally be compromised.

Further enhancing the security and integrity of Scada applications, iFIX 3.5 has been tightly integrated with Manager, GE Fanuc's advanced version management and disaster recovery solution.

Improving the ability to share plant-floor information throughout the enterprise, iFIX 3.5's powerful graphic capabilities and enhanced performance make it an ideal solution for use with Microsoft Terminal Services or Citrix enterprise access services.

iFIX 3.5 features a new startup profile manager for both user and application management, further simplifying the maintenance and administration of remote users.

With the profile manager, authorised users and system administrators can associate specific system functionality - as well as add, delete and maintain users - via a simple, easy-to-use interface.

Sharing data between Scada and other plant floor applications is made easier using the iFIX Integration Toolkit.

The toolkit delivers iFIX Database access and development, as well as historical data access, and it now includes a NET adapter to integrate completely with Visual Studio.NET.

As a result, iFIX now offers a significant advantage to developers, system integrators and OEMs who wish to leverage the latest technologies available from Microsoft.

Database connectivity is further enhanced to enable OPC operation via DCOM, allowing connections to be made to OPC clients and servers across network connections.

IFIX also includes a variety of additional enhancements, Windows Server 2003 certification, USB printer support, Microsoft VBA version 6.3 etc.

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