Smart Client Deployment

Applications developed with 100% managed components can be executed on remote systems without installing the application itself on the remote systems. This makes application updates extremely simple and provides a better user experience than web applications provide. The .NET Framework provides built in security to limit remote application execution without proper authorization.

Components that include COM or legacy ActiveX controls are not Smart Client compatible, so make sure not to use components from other vendors that talk directly to OPC Servers from the components.

All of the OPC Systems.NET WinForm and Mobile components of OPC Systems.NET are Smart Client ready to provide easy deployment of your .NET application.

To experience a Smart Client application select the link below or simply download our OPC Systems.NET product and follow the easy steps in the OPC Systems.NET help under Smart Client Deployment or use the new Smart Client deployment wizard built into Visual Studio.NET 2005 and 2008 for one touch deployment.

View a recorded webinar of the basic features of OPC Systems.NET and how to implement it for your application development. This webinar was held by one of our representatives Software Toolbox and demonstrates the feature of Click Once Deployment. Visit our Sales page for a complete listing of authorized resellers.

Click here to run a live Smart Client application right from your desktop.

	The Smart Client Example application will remote deploy from our web server to your PC.
	The data connected to the application is to one of our web servers www.opcsystemsserver.com that is running the OPC Systems Service that is included with any of the OPC Systems.NET products. If you are running a firewall simply allow the Smart Client Example application as an exception to your firewall when prompted. Run the Smart Client Example application on multiple PCs or multiple instances of the application on the same PC and notice the speed of writing data over the Internet to shared applications running all over the world! True scalable system for so many users.
	Use the Trend 3D link to enable Open GL graphic rendering.
	Use the hand icon to rotate your trend to any X, Y, and Z axis you desire.
	Use the Read Values form to see how to use the OPC Controls.NET Data component. Notice the speed of delivery of the Ramp2, Random2, and Sine2 signals at a current OPC update rate of 100 milliseconds over the Internet! Data resolution supported is 100 nanoseconds as OPC Systems.NET uses caching of multiple values with high speed Binary TCP delivery.

Now develop your own applications by downloading OPC Systems.NET and any Microsoft Visual Studio.NET 2008 product including the free to use Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition and Visual C# 2008 Express Edition.

Develop a Standard Windows WinForm application with no coding required using the OPC Controls.NET, OPC Trend.NET, and OPC Alarm.NET components connected to your own OPC Systems Service using a Network Node name or IP Address to define the OPC Systems Service data source. Then follow the steps listed below for Visual Studio.NET 2005 Click Once Deployment.

When building your own Smart Client application make sure to include either the Network Node name or IP Address of the OPC Systems Services you wish to connect to. This would include the OPC Controls Tag properties, the OPC Trend pen Tag names, the OPC Alarm window network nodes, and any routines using the OPC Systems programmatic interface.

For Internet connections be sure to use the SyncConnection property for OPC Controls.NET, OPC Trend.NET, and OPC Alarm.NET.

Visual Studio.NET 2005 and 2008 Click Once Deployment

Visual Studio.NET 2005 and 2008 now makes Smart Client deployment even easier with a deployment wizard for the Project you wish to deploy. This wizard allows you to set version information that the remote systems will use to determine if an update is available. This deployment method requires version 2.0 of the .NET Framework.

To deploy applications with Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 with the .NET Framework 2.0 is extremely simple.

Step 1

Make sure IIS is installed and running on the system you wish to deploy to.\

Step 2

In Visual Studio select the Properties of the project you wish to deploy.

Next select the Publish tab to view the Click Once deployment section.

Step 3

Set the Publish Location to the local or remote system that is running IIS.

Step 4

Set the initial Publish Version and either leave the automatic increment or disable the feature and set it manually each time you want to make an update to the application.

Step 5

Select the Publish Wizard button to begin the steps of deploying the application.

Step 6

Determine if the application will be installed remotely to run on each system even if the server is not reachable or if the application will only be available with the server is online.

Step 7

Confirm that the deployment virtual directory is correct and select Finish.

Step 8

Open port 58723 on all systems that will be communicating together that have a firewall enabled.

On each OPC Systems Service system that you wish to connect to and each remote system you will be running the application from add TCP port number 58723 if a firewall is enabled.

For Windows XP SP2 Select Control Panel-Windows Firewall.

Select the Add Port button.

Enter a Name and the Port Number 58723.

Use the Change scope button to limit the IP range to the systems that will be communicating together.

Step 9

From any remote client system simply open url of the deployment server publish page using a web browser and select the Install button.

With Smart Client deployment you can now easily deploy updates to one location and make updates just to the one deployment server and all remote users automatically receive the updates on the next time they run the system.

Step 10

You are now ready to run the application from all remote PCs that you performed Steps 2 and 3.

When the application is installed for offline/online deployment each time it runs it connects to the deployment server to see if there is a newer version available. The user is prompted to install the update or ignore and continue to run the application.

Simply run the installed Example.exe on any of the remote systems with network connectivity.

From the Example application select Network Node from the pull down menu to enter the Node Name or IP Address of any system with OPC Systems Service running.

Select any of the menu buttons to view and control data from the source OPC Systems Service.

Notice that the application is running on the remote PC without the files on the PC.

Also the communications to the source system is dynamically set with the Network Node dialog. Feel free to change the Network Node to any system that is running the OPC Systems Service with the DemotTags configuration.

With OPC Systems.NET you can easily build networked applications that connect to multiple licensed OPC Systems Services. You can either programmatically set the Network Node as in the Example application or simply set the component Tag properties to include the desired Network Node.

The user interface is far superior than a web browser, you are truly running the application on the Remote system.

Now that all of the application files are in one directory it is very easy to make updates to the one directory and all remote systems run the same common updated application, versioning has never been easier.

Visual Studio.NET 2003

Although possible to run applications as a Smart Client on systems with .NET Framework 1.1 only, you can see it is easier to use the .NET Framework Click Once deployment that is included in Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

There are a few simple steps to deploy an application as a Smart Client developed with Visual Studio.NET and the .NET Framework 1.1.

·         Share the directory containing the application you wish to deploy.

·         Use the Microsoft .NET Framework Configuration tool on all remote systems to Trust the application and its dependent DLLs.

·         Allow execution of the application through any installed Firewall.

The following example walks you through a complete Smart Client execution for a Visual Studio.NET 2003 application. These instructions are also listed in the OPC Systems.NET help file installed with OPC Systems.NET.

You will first need to download OPC Systems.NET and install it on a PC.

The Example application installed with OPC Systems.NET is a Smart Client compatible application demonstrating remote connectivity to any OPC Systems.NET Service. The application includes OPC Controls.NET, OPC Trend.NET, OPC Alarm.NET, and the OPC Systems configuration component. Perform the following steps to setup the Example application for Smart Client Deployment.

Step 1

Share the directory where the Example application resides.

By default this would be C:\Program Files\EEI\OPC Systems.NET\Example\bin\.

Step 2

Open port 58723 on all systems that will be communicating together that have a firewall.

On each OPC Systems Service system that you wish to connect to and each remote system you will be running the application from add TCP port number 58723 if a firewall is enabled.

For Windows XP SP2 Select Control Panel-Windows Firewall.

Select the Add Port button.

Enter a Name and the Port Number 58723.

Use the Change scope button to limit the IP range to the systems that will be communicating together.

Step 3

On all remote systems that will be running the Smart Client Example application use the Microsoft .NET Framework Configuration tool to Trust the Example application.

Select Control Panel-Administrative Tools-Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Configuration. (Please note that if you do not see the Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 or 2.0 Configuration tool install the .NET Framework in the operating system.)

Select Runtime Security Policy.

Use the Increase Assembly Trust Task to add all of the files from the shared network folder on the hosting system from Step 1.

Select each file from the shared network folder one by one.

Set the level of minimum security to Full Trust.