Thursday, December 14, 2006

Wonderware System Platform I just got an update from Steve Garbrecht, Marketing Program Manager at Wonderware about the new System Platform that was announced last month. I wrote about the press release here on November 11. I was somewhat amazed that I saw the press release on the Web and was not provided a head's up or even sent the press release personally. In fact, it took a month to have the briefing. I called my PR contact right away (she's one of the best in the industry). Seems they made the announcement at the same time that management was involved in corporate planning for the next fiscal year. Then trying to schedule a teleconference around my schedule is a PR person's hell. I've been reading about this in a newsletter and podcast from my UK friend, Andrew Bond. With all due respect, Andrew's supposition that this is just Wonderware's version of InFusion (Invensys Process Systems, Foxboro's new Enterprise Control System, see posts here and here) is off the mark. The Wonderware System Platform is indeed a significant move for the Lake Forest, Calif. software developer. I mentioned the last time that it appeared to be significant that this product is called a platform rather than a suite. Indeed, Garbrecht made the point that this is no loosely joined suite of separate products. This is a software platform built upon Microsoft and other standards that allows application modules to connect to it. In fact, it has hooks that independent software developers can use to add solutions to the platform independent from Wonderware. The System Platform is a licensable "product" that includes the Industrial Application Server, Industrial SQL Server (historian), Suite Voyager (the information server) and device integration components. It should be noted that Wonderware has been working for a few years now to port its products to an ArchestrA base (the underlying services platform that provides the technical unity). Therefore, some of the components of the platform are updates of current offerings. One of the features of the platform is that it provides the ability for users to add just the modules they need at the time for their particular problem with the provision that other modules can be added later as other needs arise. Wonderware plans to develop many of these modules over the next year or two. Released with the Platform are three modules. The Equipment Operations Module has the functional capabilities of the current Production Events Module with new analytics added. The Equipment Performance Module ties the current DT Analyst to the platform plus adds new capabilities for real-time dashboards and other features. Manufacturing Execution Module is an updated InTrack designed to integrate into the Platform framework. The six services that compose the Platform are Industrial Domain, Software and Device Connectivity, Information and Data Management, Information Delivery and Visualization, Application Development and System Management and Extensibility. Industrial Domain Services provide infrastructure necessary for applications but not provided by commercial operating systems. These include real-time communications and messaging, high availability and redundancy, alarm and event monitoring, data level security and global namespace. Software and Device Connectivity Services include functions enabling communication to any plant information source -- devices, databases, business applications -- including the importation of legacy and external system configurations. Information and Data Management Services provide management of all real-time and historical information. These include streaming real-time data, process historian and production database. Information Delivery and Visualization Services are functions that provide information delivery and visualization. These include analysis tools. Application Development Services allow for development of modular solutions that fit within the platform. Systems Management and Extensibility Services provide management, expansion and modification of the application or host computing architecture and includes functions such as software change audit log, computer diagnostics and distributed PC network management. 11:00:43 AM    comment []