IDXOnline's IDX bridges the Information between the Enterprise and the Business Desktop.

Introduction

IDXOnline's Intelligent Data eXchange (IDX) is a single suite of middleware products, which facilitates real-time data exchange. It bridges the gap between monitoring and control systems (with near instantaneous response typically used in the telecommunications and industrial automation process control) with transactional business systems (varied response times, generally slower based on database technology). It provides facilities to enable data validation, data transformation, and seamless integration of disparate systems. Modern enterprise systems for process control and monitoring face at least three challenges that IDX is specifically designed to address:
 

 
Integration between new products where those products were designed for good integration with other products from the same vendor, but limited or non-existent integration with products from a different vendor
 

These challenges must be successfully addressed before the total system can provide the quality of information required for an enterprise to be able to adapt and thrive in today’s fast changing business environment.
 

How do we use IDX?
 
IDX is typically used as a hub providing information exchange between one or more of the following:

Process control system (DCS or PLC) such as Siemens, Foxboro, Modicon    MMI or SCADA systems such as Wonderware, Intellution    real-time Data Historian such as OSI PI, AspenTech InfoPlus 21, and Wonderware's Industrial SQL Server    On-line Expert Systems such as G2    Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) such as SAP R/3    Standard Database and Office Applications using network, e-mail, and web technologies.

 
IDX has been designed from inception using rigid object-oriented principles. IDX takes advantage of extensive code re-use and functionality inheritance to produce compact, high performance modules. The code is based on a true 32-bit multi-threaded model and is available on Microsoft based Intel and Alpha platforms. IDX is Windows 2000 and Windows XP “ready”!

IDX is designed around a modular, client-server architecture with a central database repository and one or more driver modules.
IDX forms the core of the IDX product suite. It is a generic real-time database tag server that maintains a ‘snapshot’ of current process values, timestamps and other attributes for a number of configured tags. The tags that it maintains and the frequency at which the data values for these tags are acquired and updated are user configurable both at design and run time (the IDX node does not need to be stopped and restarted in order to change its configuration).


IDX is tightly integrated with the Windows NT operating system:

	It runs as a Windows NT service
	It registers with DCOM to supply numerous distinct communication services
	It uses the Windows NT event log for run time informational and error messages
	Configuration information is stored in the registry

As a Windows NT service, IDX has no user interface and may be started during the Windows NT boot process. In this case it begins data acquisition and distribution even before a user logs on. Once the IDX service and it’s associated modules have been loaded and are running, they continue to execute and transfer data until the service is stopped. The service may be started and stopped manually via the Control Panel / Services utility, Microsoft Management Console (MMC) or under user program control. Each IDX service has a number of interfaces registered with DCOM, including a number of command interfaces that allows the user to interact with IDX directly. This feature is typically used for configuration, simulation, diagnostics, and testing. Security within IDX can be controlled on a per-user or per-workstation basis. IDX is built using technology standards such as COM/DCOM and TCP/IP and has OPC and ADO/OLE-DB support built-in.

Each IDX module encapsulates the communication protocols and transfer mechanisms of a specific type of data source or device. This frees IDX from device specific implementation details.

The list of available modules is being continuously updated and IDXOnline should be contacted to check on the status of this list. The modular object-oriented architecture facilitates the rapid development of new driver modules - typically requiring a period of less than four weeks. An IDX instance may be configured to have more than one iDXdm linked to it, thus providing a single consistent data server for a number of dissimilar devices and data sources.