Direct data access provided in Siemens controllers

The most important new feature in the dataFEED OPC Suite is the possibility of using direct data access with ‘optimised block access’ in Siemens controllers. Users also gain direct symbolic data access to Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 and S7-1500 controllers.

As a second new feature, dataFEED OPC Suite now also supports the Siemens S7-2 protocol, which enables symbol information to be read directly from the controller. The symbol import or time-consuming manual data point configuration previously required is no longer needed.

OPC client applications also receive information about symbolic addressing via the OPC server or OPC UA server integrated into the dataFEED OPC Suite. As a result, data points for the respective data blocks can now be accessed using symbolic names.

Last but not least, there is also a new version of the dataFEED Exporter, which can be used for the direct export of symbols from a Siemens TIA Portal V14 project and their subsequent import into the OPC Suite. Apart from current Siemens controllers, dataFEED Exporter 1.10 also supports older controller types such as the SIMATIC S7-300/-400.

Andreas Roeck, Product Manager at Softing Industrial said: “With the new version of the dataFEED OPC Suite and dataFEED Exporter, our customers now have an easy-to-use, integrated solution for high-performance access to the complete family of Siemens SIMATIC S7 controllers. This makes data integration simple and reliable for a wide range of applications - even in complex systems.”

Softing´s dataFEED OPC Suite combines a full package of components for OPC and IoT cloud communication within a single product. The integrated MQTT gateway enables easy integration of legacy and new controllers into IoT cloud solutions such as Microsoft Azure or IBM Bluemix. A user interface with intelligent, practice-oriented default settings and intuitive user guidance gives system engineers and end customers a quick, straightforward and future-proof approach to implementing data integration solutions with datafeed OPC Suite.