I have a feature request that we have been kicking around for a while. I would like to use Ignition as a “PanelView” HMI replacement. At first glance the Vision Panel Edition would be a good replacement in a simple installation. There is one example of where I need a little more but the current licensing structure would make this expensive. If you have a customer who already has a licensed Ignition gateway (or two) on the network used for higher level access and reporting to clients, non-mission critical applications, but is uncomfortable with using them for HMIs we are kind of stuck. I would like to see the ability to install the Vision Panel Edition locally on an industrial PC as the HMI, point it to our Ignition gateway to enable store and forward data features between the Vision Panel Client and the Ignition Gateway. The architecture would be similar to the hub and spoke, except that instead of the remote gateways connecting directly to the database, they would connect to the main licensed Ignition Server(s). Also if they could use the system in which the projects stay in sync across multiple gateways that would allow for the project to be edited on the main gateway(s).
In this way I could convince plant engineers that they could do all of the amazing things that can be done on a client in but at the machine without fear of a single failure somewhere on the network between the machine and the gateway causing downtime.
I know that this kind of goes against the thin clean client approach that is so important to the Ignition model, and I agree, but in some cases this functionality would make for an easy win.