Typically, a plant is controlled through a network of sensors and controls connected to I/O devices, such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Although this type of system provides the automatic control that keeps the plant running, it is often difficult for plant personnel to see what's actually going on in the control process at any time. iFIX solves this problem by making data from various sources available to plant workers and managers in formats that are useful and easy to understand.
A data source includes the data you want to access and the information needed to get that data. The data sources available with iFIX include tags, I/O addresses, object properties, historical data, picture properties, VBA events, global variables, and expressions.
With the open architecture of iFIX, data can be accessed from a wide variety of sources using OLE, OPC, ActiveX, and ODBC. With comprehensive client and server support for these object technologies, iFIX is able to read data from and write data to the following sources:
- Third-party applications
- Other iFIX databases
- I/O drivers
It is this ability to access data universally that gives iFIX its remarkable power and versatility.
