Getting Started with OAS

This knowledge base will help you get started with OAS and learn how to use OAS features to visualize, control, transform, and transport data between virtually any industrial automation device or platform.

With OAS, you can move data from an Allen Bradley PLC to a Siemens PLC, or from a PLC to a database, or from a database into a visualization. This flexibility is the hallmark of the OAS Platform. Once connected, data moves seamlessly within the OAS Platform.

If you are a developer and you want to create custom applications or integrations you can leverage the OAS configuration and data APIs. This allows you to configure all aspects of OAS and access all of the tag, alarm and trend data.

The OAS Knowledge Base is designed to help you with your OAS platform learning journey through technical documentation, How-to guides, videos and FAQs.

Download and Install

You can download and leverage a fully-featured, OAS demo installation with unlimited tags for 30 days. This will allow you to learn about the OAS features that you need and build a proof of concept. If you need more than 30 days you can always contact your OAS sales partner or support to request an extension.

Windows

Linux

Docker

Configure

At the core of the OAS platform are your Tags, which represent your data model. Learn more about how to configure OAS, how to manage and organize tags, licensing and how to work with security, networking and redundancy.

Configure OAS

Technical Resources and Support

Use the following links to access additional technical resources. If you can’t find what you are looking for, or
you have a problem, please feel free to reach out and contact support.

Product Features

The OAS platform has a number of core features that are used to move, transform, store, visualize and access your data. Keep reading for a high-level description of each of these features. You will find links in each section where you can find more detailed information.

Connectors

When building your solution, one of the first considerations are the devices and systems that you want to connect to. This will allow you to move your data in and out of the OAS platform. OAS supports various device protocols and integrations ranging from traditional PLCs to Cloud connections to database integrations and custom development.

Coupled with the OAS Distributed Network Architecture (DNA), you can achieve many different architectures for moving data from devices into databases, from your industrial systems into the Cloud and between devices with differing protocols.

Data Logging

Data storage and retrieval is an important component of any data driven system. Data logging can be implemented very easily by creating a new data logging group configuration and adding some tags. OAS handles all of the rest.

The OAS platform allows you to persist your Tag data to many supported database providers as well as flat CSV files. You can choose from narrow and wide data tables, customize column names and choose from different data logging triggers.

The data logging feature is required if you wish to search for historical data using a defined date/time range in OAS .NET or Web trend, using the OAS Data SDK or using REST API.

Data Logging Overview

High Speed Logging

HowTo

Videos

Data Transformation and Transport

Tags represent your units of data and are at the heart of the OAS platform. Using Tags and Tag Groups you can organize your data to mimic your real-world processes and assets. Using the build in data transformation features you can post-process your data and track statistics using features such as Calculations, Time On and Counts and Total.

For seamless integration with MQTT based protocols you can use JSON features to parse and create JSON based payloads.

Calulations – write a function to output a Tag value using references to other Tag values and built in functions such as math, trig, comparison, limit, logical, text, statistics, date and JSON.
Time On and Counts – keep track of how long a boolean value is ON based on a specified period
Total – sum data at a specified rate
JSON – parse and generate string based JSON payloads
Data Route – move data between Tags based on trigger events and mapping definition

Web and Mobile

Desktop

Networking

Move your data between OAS instances and your client applications using the OAS Platform networking features. The Distributed Network Architecture (DNA) allows you to reference tags in local and remote OAS instances – even behind private IP addresses. OAS handles the data routing, encryption and compression for secure and efficient data transfer.

To host your data on a public facing server whilst protecting your backend processes, use the Live Data Cloud feature.

To move data from a safety critical network into another network use the Unidirectional Network Gateway feature.

Networking Overview

Typical Deployments

Remote Tag Networking

Live Data Cloud

Undirectional Networking

Redundancy

The OAS platform supports redundancy features at various levels of the configuration.

Data Source Redundancy – the ability to source a tag from another local or remote tag if the quality is bad
Interface Redundancy – the ability to specify an alternative set of connection properties for a driver
Database Logging Override – the ability to specify database hosts, database names and table names dynamically based on tag or failure conditions
Data Log Buffering – the ability for OAS to automatically buffer logging data to disk if a database connection is offline and resume logging after connection is restored
Dynamic Feature Activation – the ability to enable or disable data logging, alarm notification, alarm logging, recipes and connectors based on other tags or failure conditions
Application Redundancy – the ability for multiple clients to monitor the same instances and tags in case one fails
Application Fallback – the ability to specify a backup OAS instance in case the primary connection fails

Redundancy Overview

APIs and SDKs

The OAS platform supports a number of programmatic interfaces for both .NET integration and Web integration using REST API.

The Configuration APIs allow you to manage all aspects of the OAS Platform programmatically (except Security and Users) using both .NET and REST API calls. This is included in all OAS licenses.

The Data APIs allow you to read and write Tag data and read Alarm and Trend data programmatically using .NET or REST API calls. The .NET and Web versions of the Alarm and Trend features are licensed separately.

The Universal Driver Interface allows you to write your own custom interface drivers for protocols that the OAS platform does not natively support. This is included in all OAS licenses.