Overview
The TruLink Consortium was founded by Finesse Solutions in an effort to
address a growing list of concerns and challenges identified as 3rd party
instruments where interfaced with bioprocess control systems. This
list identified Five (5) key factors in limiting the successful integration
of a 3rd party instrument to a bioprocess control system. The list
that was compiled identified the following:
- OPC is a good standard for exchanging information but there are some
challenges. Amongst these challenges are:
- Requires configuration effort
to link OPC servers even with today’s
state of the art tools. Pipes must be manually linked or a configuration
file has to be created by someone very familiar with both units to
be connected.
- Controlling or sequencing between components can be difficult
and requires significant engineering to achieve.
- Links are not “Dynamic” and
making changes is not easy to automate.
- Every integration is “reinventing the wheel”.
- Custom nature
of linking OPC servers is not validation friendly for batch applications
- OPC-UA
still has a ways to go before it can be used as a high throughput solution.
To address these concerns and challenges the TruLink Consortium defined
the building blocks upon which the TruLink Standard would be based. They
are as follows:
- TruLink will leverage the high throughput of OPC-DA with the flexibility
of XML.
- XML documents will define the structure and data availability of
TruLink Units
- OPC-DA connections will be dynamically created between
units to pass the control and process data.
TruLink will allow users to connect units and exchange data and/or control
without having to understand the programming structure below the “TruLink” layer.
Click here to download a pdf file explaining the TruLink Architecture
