Industrial Data Interfaces for Production

Your easy machine integration and secure data transmission thanks to industrial interface standards

Produktionsanlage Industrielle Schnittstelle FabEagleConnect

Reliable data interfaces such as OPC UA, REST and TCP/IP play a decisive role in today's production landscape. As a producer or machine manufacturer, using these interfaces is the key to seamless integration into the IT/OT system landscape or to a secure connection to the cloud. Choosing the right software for interface integration is therefore a decisive factor for your application. You need to be able to rely on high scalability, first-class support and regular updates for secure operation over the long term.

Don't underestimate the potential of interface integration

More time: Configuration of complex interfaces through easy dialogs instead of complex programming
More security: Updates, support and quick assistance with adjustments and errors with sophisticated software
More insights: Diagnostic ability to ensure error-free operation through log files and live message monitoring
More flexibility: Application scalability for more flexibility in production

Diverse challenges

Modern manufacturing industries have seen data interfaces become an essential part of the smooth exchange of data for automating, monitoring and optimizing production processes. Integrating them offers numerous benefits, while they also present challenges:

Complex systems, data and their specific requirements

Machine and system interfaces can be extremely complex, particularly when it comes to integrating different systems with different functions, protocols and data formats into one production scenario. It requires a deep understanding of how the corresponding interface protocols work and the machine manufacturer's specification of the data structures within the machine interface to ensure seamless data exchange.

Specifying machine and system interfaces

Machine and system interfaces must be reliable to avoid faults and failures. It is important to define clear specifications for data structures, error handling, and buffering to ensure that communication is error-free and fail-safe.

Scalability for dynamic production processes

Software for interface integration must be scalable in order to meet the performance and flexibility requirements of the production in the future. With larger production lines, the integration software must be able to handle increasing data loads and enable the parallelization of data connections.

Data and system security

Security is a major challenge when specifying machine and system interfaces. Secure data interface types must be used to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data transmitted and to prevent unauthorized access or manipulation.

FabEagle®Connect: The integration solution for interface protocols

The FabEagle®Connect low-code integration solution offers you easy and reliable integration of a wide range of data interfaces.

Databases
A database interface enables communication between applications and a database. The integration solution connects to the database, sends SQL statements for queries, inserts, updates, or deletions, and receives results in the form of datasets.

OPC UA
OPC UA (Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture) is a widely used standard for secure and reliable communication in industry. It relies on a service-oriented architecture and a well-structured information model. Due to its increasing distribution and versatile application, OPC UA is regarded as the most future-proof interface and is therefore part of the standard for FabEagle®Connect.

TCP/IP
TCP/IP is one of the most well-known network protocols that forms the basis for many application protocols and more complex interfaces. TCP/IP shapes the reference model by dividing it into functional layers (application, transport, Internet and network access layer).

REST client
Representational State Transfer (REST) is a further development of the HTTP object model and was developed specifically for distributed web services. The client-server architecture is combined with various features to focus on the uniformity of the interfaces. The HTTP user layer makes REST compatible with almost all online services and web clients.

Modbus
Modbus is a bus system that enables communication between client and servers. As a common industry standard, Modbus is often used by PLCs and automation technology.

ActiveMQ
MQ in ActiveMQ stands for Message Queue and converts synchronous communication into asynchronous communication. ActiveMQ is a free message broker and was developed by the Apache Software Foundation. Asynchronous communication offers a high potential for optimization in the transmission of data and supports various clients (REST, AMQP, MQTT).