OpenSCADA Project News http://openscada.org/news/ en-us Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:21:57 +0200 Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:21:57 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/10.06.2010162154JREJUS.htm Plan Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/10.06.2010162154JREJUS.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/10.06.2010162154JREJUS.htm http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/10.06.2010162154JREJUS.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/10.06.2010162154JREJUS.htm?opendocument&comments Mon, 31 May 2010 15:43:37 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/31.05.2010154336JREJ4U.htm Bob Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/31.05.2010154336JREJ4U.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/31.05.2010154336JREJ4U.htm In the Bob project  (the project where we gather our projects aiding in the build and development process) we now added a cute little plugin that add a directory based class path container. The functionality is rather simple but, as far a I think, is missing in Eclipse for a long time.

You can add a new class path container entry to the project and define a path (using Eclipse variables) which will be used as a base for scanning for JAR files. All JAR files will be added to the projects class path. Also will the class path refresh itself when the directory content is changed.

The plug-in can be installed from the update site at http://repo.openscada.org/p2/bob/R using the Eclipse update system.










]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/31.05.2010154336JREJ4U.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/31.05.2010154336JREJ4U.htm?opendocument&comments Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:42:01 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/14.04.2010174159JRELET.htm Plan Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/14.04.2010174159JRELET.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/14.04.2010174159JRELET.htm
Also we reached a decision of the license. OpenSCADA will fully switch to LGPLv3 since this seems to be best way to have it all. Since this includes a fair amount of project to touch it might take some time until the transition is complete. Patches are welcome ;-)

On the community side we currently are in the progress of updating the homepage. We already got a Google Group (http://groups.google.com/group/openscada) and got the SourceForge project assigned. The previous "OpenSCADA" was declared inactive and dead so we got the chance to take over.

I hope that I can give you some more news the next weeks. ]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/14.04.2010174159JRELET.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/14.04.2010174159JRELET.htm?opendocument&comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:27:01 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/24.02.2010102701JRED4F.htm Atlantis Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/24.02.2010102701JRED4F.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/24.02.2010102701JRED4F.htm Facebook and listen to Tweets on Twitter. Also we are experimenting with github in order to try out git. The main focus is still on Subversion, but having a distributed version control system would really be nice. At the moment we are missing the matured Eclipse integration that Subversion and Subclipse offer. There is much work to be done for EGit/JGit but it looks promising!

In our own project we have been quite busy too. OpenSCADA 0.15.0 got lots of new stuff. We got a configuration management system which is similiar to OSGi CM service and beside having a properties file based backend it features now a JDBC backend, WebService Client and Server interfaces, an OpenSCADA Connection implementation (based on the WebService) and some preliminary UI components. The UI components will allow one to configure most aspects of the new Master Server which performs a lot of the functionality we had in the "Chain Items" in the past. Manual overrides, level alarms, event and data archive. All this is combined in this new server. It is fully based on OSGi which makes is really modular. That's why configuration is getting so important. And while we already can do a mass import of configuration data from Excel or OpenOffice using the WebService and Python, we surely want to have OSTC being able to change configuration data in detail. The integration builds still have a read-only version of the configuration editor but hopefully this will change soon. The due to the fact that OSTC is becoming more and more some real administration tool we will rename it, maybe to "OpenSCADA Admin Client".

Last but not least OSTC has some cleaned up colors and a system behind that color scheme. If you don't like it you can change it ;-)

]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/24.02.2010102701JRED4F.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/24.02.2010102701JRED4F.htm?opendocument&comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:53:16 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/28.01.2010155316JREKGD.htm Atlantis Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/28.01.2010155316JREKGD.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/28.01.2010155316JREKGD.htm eeeveee we have a nice little splash screen and a huge fantasic poster for the 0.15.0.



The next release after 0.15.0 will hopefully be the long awaited 1.0! ;-) ]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/28.01.2010155316JREKGD.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/28.01.2010155316JREKGD.htm?opendocument&comments Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:54:51 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/25.11.2009165452JRELNV.htm Atlantis Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/25.11.2009165452JRELNV.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/25.11.2009165452JRELNV.htm
You can download the release here: http://download.openscada.org or go to our repository here http://repo.openscada.org.

The most important feature in this release is the Historical Data archive (HD) which allows one to record and compress data for a long time. This also triggered lots of changed in OSTC (the OpenSCADA Test Client) which now supports different connections types (Data Access, Historical Data and the upcoming Alarms and Events).





But beside the HD development the following changes have been made:

• Complete OSGi based system including lots of backend and frontend stuff. This also allows one to write OSGi based DA hives or OSGi based clients
• Development of the historical value archive (HD)
• Development of a rudimentary configuration engine which allows on the fly configuration updates (CA)
• Cleanup and enhancement of the OSTC. Adding AE and HD functionality and preparing for a split from the Atlantis project.
• and of course lots and lots of small fixes and enhancements

Together with Atlantis we also released (0.14.0) Aurora and Utgard (0.6.0) which contain minor enhancements and fixes.

The OSTC can also be downloaded as an MSI file for the Windows platform at http://download.openscada.org/ostc/R. ]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/25.11.2009165452JRELNV.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/25.11.2009165452JRELNV.htm?opendocument&comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:41:28 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/10232009114128AMJREDDH.htm OSTC Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/10232009114128AMJREDDH.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/10232009114128AMJREDDH.htm
]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/10232009114128AMJREDDH.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/10232009114128AMJREDDH.htm?opendocument&comments Thu, 1 Oct 2009 13:26:41 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/01.10.2009132641JREFF8.htm Plan Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/01.10.2009132641JREFF8.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/01.10.2009132641JREFF8.htm



Security
Based on the Apache MINA libary we want SSL encryption for connections. While this is already in the SVN trunk of Atlantis user authentication and ACLs are still an open issue. The best solution would be to include the SSL layer in the authentication step. But for 0.14.0 I guess we will focus on implementing username + password based authentication. This will provide the infrastructure for a full blown ACL system and the integration of the SSL context in 0.15.0

OSGi Part 1
The transformation of all Java based OpenSCADA modules to OSGi bundles was only a start. We already got several OSGi based "Eclipse PlugIns" which need to be merged with the plain OSGi bundles. This also means that we need a concept for handling different connection implementations using OSGi instead of the Eclipse Extension Framework (aka Extension Points).

OSGi Part 2
Also we will enhance the server side of Atlantis. Starting with some tools to easily implement an OSGi based hive which picks up Hive and DataItem instances and exports them using the already pluggable exporters. But all in a way that fits into OSGi.

Service Discovery
Automatic service discovery will, hopefully, be in 0.14.0. We are currently implementing a solution based on mDNS (aka zeroconf, avahi, bonjour, etc) which will announce Atlantis services (e.g. Hives) to all that listen. And OSTC will of course be one of the listeners. So no more adding manual connection URIs ;-)

Historical Data
In 0.14.0 we want to provide the next major interrface for Atlantis: Historical Data. This will include a first interface defintion and implementation. A storage engine for storing and browsing through historical data. A client viewer application.

And what lies beyond 0.14.0? ... We got lots of ideas. I all goes right we want to make the alarming system available coming from a project based solution and adapting it to OSGi. We got lots of ideas for the OSTC application and of course we have some areas in mind which could be cleaned up a little bit ;-) ]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/01.10.2009132641JREFF8.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/01.10.2009132641JREFF8.htm?opendocument&comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:07:25 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/18.09.2009090724JREAD8.htm Maven Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/18.09.2009090724JREAD8.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/18.09.2009090724JREAD8.htm So for now we will convert the P2 repositories into maven 2 repositories which provides us with a seamless way to switch back from maven-horror to some other build system with the rest of our projects.
If you like to try out the converter have a look (checkout) http://pubsvn.inavare.net/openscada/modules/bob/trunk/org.openscada.bob.p2convert/ and try it out. While this is a quick solution for now we hope to extend it in order to convert to other target in the future. If you need help reading the source just leave a comment or ask by mail. ]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/18.09.2009090724JREAD8.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/18.09.2009090724JREAD8.htm?opendocument&comments Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:37:13 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/10.08.2009103713JREC5C.htm Atlantis Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/10.08.2009103713JREC5C.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/10.08.2009103713JREC5C.htm
While 0.13.2 is only a bug fix release the 0.13.0 contained some really nice feautures. So read what new features are in 0.13.0 and 0.12.0!



The most interesting topics of 0.13.0 are:

• Switched to Maven ... (still unsure if this was a wise move)
• Switched to OSGi ... this definitely was a wise move!
• Enhanced the performance of the OPC server, reducing memory footprint, CPU load and implementing Async 2.0
• Lots and lots of minor enhancements

The most interesting topic of 0.12.0 where:

• Switched to Apache MINA ... we dumped to custom NIO bases socket layer code and implement the protocol using Apache MINA.
• Adding compression and tracing to the GMPP/NET protocol using Apache MINA

]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/10.08.2009103713JREC5C.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/10.08.2009103713JREC5C.htm?opendocument&comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:09:18 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/29.07.2009180917JRELXU.htm Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/29.07.2009180917JRELXU.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/29.07.2009180917JRELXU.htm
A lot has happened in the last months, so we try to publish the "news" of the past in the next few days.

Sorry for the silence ... ]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/29.07.2009180917JRELXU.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/29.07.2009180917JRELXU.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:15:00 +0200 http://openscada.org/news/dx/30.07.2009095329JREB9Z.htm OSTC Jens Reimann http://openscada.org/news/dx/30.07.2009095329JREB9Z.htm?opendocument&comments http://openscada.org/news/dx/30.07.2009095329JREB9Z.htm
]]> http://openscada.org/news/dxcomments/30.07.2009095329JREB9Z.htm http://openscada.org/news/dx/30.07.2009095329JREB9Z.htm?opendocument&comments