The following figure shows the most important components of DirectDataLink.
DirectDataLink consists of three levels:
The first level is formed by the communications modules, which serve as protocol and data format adaptors for machines from different manufacturers. Two communications modules are provided for OpCon XML and for the Production Performance Management Protocol (PPMP). OpCon XML messages are transmitted via TCP, while PPMP messages are sent via HTTP(S). For example, a data source for PPMP messages can be the IoT Gateway, while the OpCon XML messages can be sent from PLCs and stations from multiple providers.
The second level consists of the internal services for reading the configuration, buffering, variable mapping, and conditional execution of processing steps.
The third level consists of the processing modules that convert the data into the format expected by the target services. The target services can be in the cloud as well as on premise. With the PPMP Access processing module, the data can be sent via HTTP(S) to performance monitoring, line management, etc. On the other hand, data can also be sent to order management via WCF.
The two communications modules (XML and PPMP) and the two processing modules (PPMP Access and for order management) are described in the following chapters.
