Hello, first of all please apologize mine english, I’m from Czech 
In our company we have a lot if different brands of PLC’s (S7-200, S7-300, S7-1200, S7-1500, Mitsch, AB RS 500, AB RS 5000, Omron, Beckhoff) - very very difficult situation.
But … we would like to start with Ignition sw in order to provide remote monitoring, historian and all other add-ons of that sw.
The very first issue comes with S7-200 because as far as I know Ignition has not direct driver and I think with Beckhoff it will be same story.
The question is: Ignition can connect any 3rd party OPC-DA / UP server, and I found KepServerEx and Matrikon OPC supports all of your PLC’s brand.
I alson found lot of tutorials how to connect KepServerEx with Ignition - is this kind of connection really better and seamless than Matrikon (for example). I would like to say that I’m in “looking around” phase, so if there is any better solution - I will appreciate that!! Thank!
You should be able to use some combination of our own drivers and Kepware to fill the gaps (S7-200, Mitsch?, older Beckhoff stuff that doesn’t have UA).
Technically any 3rd party OPC server that has a driver you need should work but Kepware would be my first choice.
Hey Kevin, thanks for quick answer.
Assuming KepServerEx … they also offer separate driver for each brand of PLC. So then I probably have to make some comparion which scenario is better an makes better economic sense:
- Ignition <-> KepserverEx <-> for each vendor separate driver
- Ignition <-> use available vendor’s driver + use KepServerEx for fill gap as you suggested
right?
Yes you’ll have to do some accounting and testing to see what works best for you.