Accessing Remote Items Via The I/O Server - Siemens 3964R User Manual

2
SuiteLink uses a TCP/IP based protocol and is designed specifically to meet industrial
needs such as data integrity, high-throughput, and improved diagnostics. This protocol
standard is only supported on Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000.
SuiteLink is not a replacement for DDE, FastDDE, or NetDDE. The protocol used
between a client and a server depends on your network connections and configurations.
SuiteLink was designed to be the industrial data network distribution standard and
provides the following features:
•
•
•
•

Accessing Remote Items via the I/O Server

The communication protocol addresses an element of data in a conversation that uses a
three-part naming convention that includes the application name, topic name and item
name. The following briefly describes each portion of this naming convention:
application name
topic name
item name
Value Time Quality (VTQ) places a time stamp and quality indicator on all data
values delivered to VTQ-aware clients.
Extensive diagnostics of the data throughput, server loading, computer resource
consumption, and network transport are made accessible through the Microsoft
Windows NT and Windows 2000 operating systems Performance Monitor. This
feature is critical for the scheme and maintenance of distributed industrial
networks.
Consistent high data volumes can be maintained between applications regardless if
the applications are on a single node or distributed over a large node count.
The network transport protocol is TCP/IP using Microsoft's standard WinSock
interface.
The name of the Windows program (server) that will be
accessing the data element. In the case of data coming from
or going to Siemens equipment via this server, the
application portion of the address is S3964R.
Meaningful names are configured in the server to identify
specific devices. These names are then used as the topic
name in all conversations to that device. For example,
S115U.
Note You can define multiple topic names for the same
device (PLC) to poll different points at different rates.
A specific data element within the specified topic. For
example, when using this server, an item can be a relay,
timer, counter, register, etc., in the PLC.
Note The item/point names are predefined by the server.
The term "point" is used interchangeably with the term
"item" in this user's guide.
For more information on item/point names, see the
"Item Names" section later in this user's guide.