A key goal for the OPC DataHub is to provide secure, robust networking of industrial data. For a long time this has best been accomplished through OPC tunneling, to avoid the hassles and pitfalls of DCOM. Now a new OPC standard, OPC Xi, has been developed, which uses WCF instead of DCOM to transport data. This newer technology promises more robust OPC servers and clients, better support for networking, including WAN, and better security.

The next major release of the OPC DataHub will offer a native implementation of OPC Xi server and client interfaces. This new version will also provide more OPC tunneling options, as well as:

• Support for the OPC Alarms and Events protocol
• A new built-in Data Historian component
• A new Trending component for quickly building real-time trend graphs

On June 29th the OPC Foundation will host a web demo of some applications offering OPC Xi. The upcoming release of the OPC DataHub, which has native OPC Xi support built in, will be featured in the demo.

The exact time for the web demo has not yet been announced. We will send you a special email with a link to register for the web demo as soon as the information is available.

An updated version, 6.4.13, of the OPC DataHub is now available for download on the OPC DataHub website. This release includes a Portuguese translation of the user interface. We want to express our appreciation to Felipe Marcel at Exata Sistemas de Automação Ltda in Brazil for his work on the translation.