Simulation of Driver Tags & remote desktop via ignition etc

Ignition
1

Hi Everyone,
Item 1:
A nice feature would be:
When one uses the ignition drivers for allenbradley plc’s and “retrieves the tags from the PLC”, then disconnect’s the PLC from ignition (remove ethernet cable). Now have a check box so that the tags appear to be online, like a simulation function, so that when one is developing off site the screen doesn’t look all red.

Item 2:
Secondly, it would be nice to be able to have like a remote desktop feature via ignition client (only admin can use this) of the server it is running on. Very usefull for remote support, where the IT department will not open any other ports other then 80 and 443.
I konw Some VNC clients can do some html routing.

Item 3:
Where is the Load balancing/Clustering mode on redundancys gone as of the latest version, would it be possible to reintroduce it in some shape of form. E.G. having 2 masters in a redundancy etc.
The replication of data to be done by ignition rather then setting up replication in the databases.

Item 4:
Where are the long awaited Siemens drivers, Many people have voted for this.

Regards Sascha

2

You can disable tag overlay if you don’t like the red boxes o’doom.
(system.tag.setOverlaysEnabled is the function to do so)

3

[quote=“info@focus-eng.com”]Hi Everyone,
Item 4:
Where are the long awaited Siemens drivers, Many people have voted for this.

Regards Sascha[/quote]

In beta right now. Email support@inductiveautomation.com if you’re interested in testing.

4

Item #1: This was actually planned way back in the beginning of developing Ignition, and got put aside for some reason. Having a way to do this would probably be useful for development.

Item #3: If I understand correctly, you’re asking for something didn’t even exist with old clustering- to have to separate gateways running fully, but synchronized automatically in their configuration. While this request doesn’t come up much, a similar idea has already been put in our dev pipeline, for the purpose of making Panel edition better for failover control. I’m sure the idea could be expanded a bit to what you have in mind.

I’ll put the ideas in our issue tracker, though the timeline might be a bit long (towards the end of the year). We’re pretty set on what’s going in to 7.3.

Regards,

5

Is it just me, or does #2 seem wildly outside the scope of what our software should attempt to do?

6

I thought it could do this right now? You just have to set the ports Ignition uses to 80 or 443.

Or do you want access to more then just the Ignition home page? if that’s the case, look up Live Meeting, Goto Meeting, or Logmein

I sure there are more out there. I just don’t see the IA team trying to compete in this area.

7

I think that item #2 is not a good path to go down from a security perspective. It goes against the Inductive Automation mantra of leveraging existing technologies. There are many good IT products like the ones you mentioned (VNC, Remote Desktop, etc) for server management. These can work over common TCP ports like you described. As mentioned products like logmein or Gotomypc would also work (IT would probably be more nervous about these). You could also use a KVM over IP type of device.

My advice would be to work with your IT department instead of against them. Instead of suggesting a technical solution, try bringing them your requirements. For example, “we need to be able to remote control our server for administrative purposes, how can we best accomplish that”?