TOP Server Features to Be Excited About - IT & Infrastructure Suite

With TOP Server, one of the key strengths is the wide variety of different drivers/protocols to choose from for communicating with the multitude of device makes and models out there in the automation world.  There are, of course, all of the major manufacturers such as Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Omron, Mitsubishi and so many more organized into driver suites.

But what about specific industries such as Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Power & Utilities, Building Automation or IT & Infrastructure?  TOP Server has vertical industry suites, as well.

Continuing our series about specific industries covered by TOP Server, keep reading to find out specific details about the TOP Server IT & Infrastructure Suite including several great features that should make your lives easier in TOP Server V6.0.

In the IT & Infrastructure space, it is essential for automation, IT, and operations professionals to have the ability to monitor and control the equipment making up system infrastructures.  Communications protocols such as SNMP and Modbus are commonly supported by such equipment to provide those monitoring and control capabilities.  Looking for my post on Oil & Gas specific features?  Click Here

TOP Server has always provided an SNMP Suite and a Modbus Suite and other drivers such as System Monitor for keeping a pulse on the PC hardware statistics as individual offerings.  But if you need all of those capabilities, the best option provides all of the common drivers in one bundle - the TOP Server IT/Infrastructure Suite.

So what is the IT/Infrastructure Suite?  Let me talk about the component drivers of the suite in brief, as well as, some specific features that IT professionals who need these drivers will find particularly useful and time-saving as your trying to monitor your infrastructure from systems like Wonderware.

1. The Drivers

The TOP Server IT & Infrastructure Suite provides the most popular drivers that can be used by your HMI/SCADA, DCS system or Historian to monitor the health of your critical network and IT infrastructure systems that form the foundation of your control systems.

• Industrial SNMP - Used to monitor and manage SNMP Managed Devices (Network Infrastructure, Bridges, Routers, UPS Systems, Device Servers, Printers and more)
  
  
• Ping - Used for monitoring basic PING-compliant network devices (i.e. unmanaged)
  
  

• Modbus RTU Serial - For devices with a serial interface, a commonly used protocol is the Modbus RTU Serial protocol (supports native Ethernet encapsulation)
  
  
• Modbus ASCII Serial - For devices with a serial interface, another commonly used protocol on older hardware is the Modbus ASCII Serial protocol (supports native Ethernet encapsulation)
  
  
• Modbus TCP Ethernet - For newer devices with an Ethernet interface, a commonly used protocol is the Modbus TCP protocol
  
  
• System Monitor - Used to monitor PC health and performance metrics on the underlying PC hardware
  
  
• UCON (User-Configurable) - For those IT/Infrastructure devices not supporting SNMP or Modbus, the UCON driver enables configuring connectivity for basic protocols where protocol documentation is available.
  
  
• CID (Custom Interface) - Allows development of custom communications into TOP Server using any language that supports the Windows API (Relies on Shared Memory standards and constructs)

Rather than requiring separate licenses for each of these drivers needed for IT/Infrastructure communications, the IT/Infrastructure Suite brings them all into a single convenient option when a majority of these protocols are needed for a project.

2. The Features - Configuration API

Over the years, we've worked with companies and integrators in the IT/Infrastructure space that I tend to refer to as "power users".  If you're one of those power users, you may have asked us in the past for the ability to configure your TOP Server programmatically from another application outside just the standard TOP Server user interface.

TOP Server V6.0 gives you the ability to programmatically configure TOP Server through a REST-based API.  And stay tuned - in the future, we will also be introducing a .NET API.  But what does that mean for you?

• Configure TOP Server from any custom application
  
  
  • If you have your own custom developed IT applications that are accessing TOP Server and you’ve always wondered why it isn’t possible to configure your TOP Server straight from that IT application – TOP Server V6.0 makes that possible.
  • The new API provides all of the same configuration options available using in the TOP Server user interface, but via API calls you can make from any custom application (things like adding a new channel or device, editing existing channels/devices/tags, deleting channels/devices/tags, and so much more).
  • So if you have a custom client application that you have developed for monitoring your infrastructure, for instance, you could now program that application to utilize the new API and potentially make all of your configuration changes in one place (that client application) and have the corresponding changes automatically propagate to TOP Server without ever having to open the TOP Server UI!

3. The Features - Device Discovery

If you've used TOP Server previously, you'll recall that TOP Server is generally a very intuitive and easy-to-use solution for connectivity.  Channel and device "wizards" step you through the configuration and use default settings that commonly work with minimal edits.

Taking that a step further, several of the drivers available in TOP Server also support automatic device discovery (where the communications protocol supports this).  For IT and Infrastructure professionals, you'll be especially pleased to know that the included TOP Server SNMP driver does support automatic device discovery for detecting your SNMP managed devices on the network and adding them to your TOP Server configuration.

Going even further, in TOP Server V6, automatic device discovery is now exposed in the updated tree view as a right-click option (previously, you had to open the Channel properties to access device auto discovery).

Streamlining this process even further frees up even more of your valuable time to focus on other IT tasks on your to-do list.

4. The Features - Enhanced Security Included

And last, but not least, TOP Server V6.0 now includes complimentary access to the Security Policies advanced plug-in at no additional charge, previously a $395 add-in option.  But what is the Security Policies plug-in, you might be saying, and how does it apply to me as an IT professional using TOP Server?

• Flexible, powerful control over your TOP Server
  
  
  • The Security Policies plug-in provides the ultimate in flexible user authentication for your TOP Server.
  • You can dictate what users have access to down to the individual tag level based on their defined user in the integrate TOP Server User Manager.
  • With security being at the forefront of concern for most IT professionals, you need to be able to ensure the right people have the right access to the right settings.  Having access to the Security Policies plug-in should make your job that much easier with respect to security.

All of these new features will provide improved efficiency, scalability, and flexibility for your current or upcoming IT projects.  And, while these are some of the most relevant features for IT, as always, we have a list of other enhancements and features in the release notes that we just don’t have room to cover here - click for details.

Ready to see TOP Server V6 in action?  Click below to access an on-demand webinar with live demonstration of the new features.