Unattended Windows Services

Windows Services are applications that run in the background and can be configured to startup automatically when the Operating System boots-up. Another benefit is that they do not require a user to be logged into the system.

The OPC Web Client can be easily used within Windows Service applications.

What can I do with Unattended Windows Services?

• Browsing
• Computers on the network
• OPC Servers available on a local/remote computer
• OPC Items (Tags) within a local/remote OPC Server.
• Retrieve the properties of the OPC Server and OPC Items.
• Subscriptions
• Subscribe and unsubscribe to one or multiple items
• Control active status of each tag
• Reads
• one or multiple items
• synchronously or asynchronously from the OPC Servers Cache or Device
• Writes
• to one or multiple items
• synchronously or asynchronously to the OPC Servers Cache or Device

Multithreaded applications can benefit from using the OPC Web Client in multiple threads to assure maximum data throughput and efficiency within your application/system.

Which components can I use?

• .NET (VB.NET, C#) = OPCData.NET and/or OPC Web Service
• Delphi = OPCData.NET and/or OPC Web Service
• C++ = OPCData.NET and/or OPC Web Service

NOTE: If you plan on using a different development environment than what is listed above, it is still very likely that you can use the OPCData.NET components.

How do I deploy what I have made?

Depending on which component you use (OPCData.NET or OPC Web Service) will determine how you deploy your application. The OPC Web Service would be installed on a centralized server computer. If using the OPCData.NET components, then you will need to deploy them along with your service application.

Where can I download example source-code?

We have a number of example Windows Service applications for download here.