Ni OPC Servers help

[stu22]

Hi, i have a license for Labview 8.6, DSC and OPC Servers. I have set up OPC servers to communicate with my 3rd party OPC server via  remote connection. Then used a client to test the connection. Now i want to do this on a second PC with an application built in Labview, so i can read the OPC data there. How do i do this, Do i need another licence?? for NI OPC Servers?? to do this or do i set up the NI OPC Servers another way e.g. on the 3rd party OPC Server??

Stu

[AdnanZ]

If you already have an OPC server, you don't have to use NI's OPC Server.

One option of communication through OPC is to use the LabVIEW DSC module, which enables OPC communication through shared variables. This means that you need the DSC module if you are interested in using the shared variables approach. The other option is to simply use the Datasocket VIs. Because DataSockets are a standard part of LabVIEW, you do not need any special software modules to access your OPC tags with this method.

From a performance standpoint, there is no difference between these two methods when the DataSocket is configured correctly. At run time, accessing the tags will happen at the same rate and with the exact same behavior. To configure the DataSocket connection correctly, ensure that you open and close a connection to your tag only once when reading or writing from it iteratively.

Do a search for 'opc dsc' and 'opc datasocket' to get examples of both approaches. Let us know if you have any other questions.