Re: [foxboro] Fear & Loathing in Las Vega$
- From: Corey R Clingo <clingoc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 12:29:13 -0500
And I would add that Invensys is thinking that concentrating on one platform
will save them development time and effort. NT/2000/XP is an inferior
automation platform; anyone who has used NT and any version of Unix or a
proprietary OS knows that. But Micro$oft wins again by inertia/market share
brought about by, you guessed it, superior marketing - not superior technology
(it is sad, too, because they have the resources to put out superior
technology).
Developing on one platform is, at least in theory, easier than developing for
two, or ten. I don't know that working around the difficulties of Windoze
doesn't at least partially offset that savings, but from a high-level manager's
viewpoint, the cost, time, and manpower savings are probably too hard to ignore.
And what platform are they gonna bet on? Not Solaris. Sun has long since lost
the workstation market, and is losing ground in the server arena as well. The
sale of Alpha to Intel and the migration of HP machines to IA-64 have not helped
Sun's position, either.
So the obvious choice (to the aforemantioned high-level manager) is
Intel/Windoze. They can tout a laundry list of "customer benefits" (OPC,
running Excel on your DCS console, etc.) but the truth is that Invensys is the
primary beneficiary.
And if the boxes aren't as robust as Sun's, well, Invensys just tells you to buy
more of them. Works out great for them.
As for reliability, 2000/XP is no better than NT -- in fact it is worse in some
ways. I can spontaneously reboot a W2K machine and an XP machine I have, on
command, by shutting down a certain USB device I use on them. So I usually
attach the device to one of my Linux boxes; no problem. Sure didn't give me any
comfort. I tend to get the spontaneous reboots rather than blue screens of NT,
but that isn't an improvement IMHO.
I just hope the Wonderware coders have some insight that will keep us customers
from having to do too much gamma testing.
I did have a question though. Is Invensys going to an IEC-1131 style of
programming for all their systems, as they use for Triconex now? Will I be able
to define my own custom blocks in a CP?
Corey Clingo
Sr. Engineer
BASF Corporation
drjohn@xxxxxxxxxx on 10/10/2001 10:31:19 AM
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Subject: Re: [foxboro] Fear & Loathing in Las Vega$
Mike Jaudon asked (I sum up here)
What is the incentive to change?
I think it is supposed to be a better, easier to use set of tools that are more
consistent and windows like. They invision being able to use one control
configurator for any of the Invensys family of products with modules that
connect to the ArchestrA framework. I did look at the "concept" icc and it had
some nice features. I don't think that any of the old stuff is going to quit
working. I just don't think there will be too much of a development effort
placed on the Unix systems. They are going to upgrade the base OS on the Unix
boxes to Solaris 8 in a mid 2002 release. That should make the Unix platform
supportable for a long time. They are also planning to release a new FoxView
FoxDraw package for NT(XP) and Unix mid 2002. This new stuff is still a
loooong way off, so no need to get too stressed. But they are making it clear
that this is the path that they wish to take.
Regards,
David
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