BUSN: How important is multivendor interoperability to you?

Mon Sep 21 15:34:45 EDT 2009

==> Automation List post by Adriel Michaud...
To view or reply to this thread: http://www.control.com/thread/1253106833#1253561365

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Re: BUSN: How important is multivendor interoperability to you?
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Without any kind of certification, specs tend to be "enhanced" by specific vendors past the original scope.  Modbus is actually a great example because there are so many variations.  Do you stop at implementing a single edition of the spec, or do you add support for wide registers, flipped bits, floats, or any of the other weird and wonderful extensions that have been used over the years?

HMTL is a free, open spec without mandatory certification and is something of a gong show to develop for.  It's ridiculous that you have to be aware of, and code for, vendor-specific anomalies such as those present in various web browsers.  It's also an incredible barrier to entry for any company to develop their own browser, because they effectively have to reverse-engineer Internet Explorer circa 2003 to be able to support most of the sites out there.  These barriers are not present in current OPC.  If you write a decent OPC Server that passes using the OPC Foundation's Analyzer tool, there's a good chance it will work with anyone's OPC Client.

Coming back to the topic, _some_ form of standardized certification will ensure developers stick to known, defined boundaries.  So long as the process/tools do not unnecessarily hinder adoption and the pricing is appropriate, mandatory certification will prevent non compliant garbage from getting to market.
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