Open Standards for easy integration

Right from the start, SIMATIC WinCC has stood for the highest levels of openness and integration, since it has consistently backed Microsoft technologies.

Microsoft Windows 2000/XP - making no compromises in the question of operating systems 

In the final analysis, this means a very safe investment for you, since you can easily keep up with innovations in operating systems

MS SQL Server 2000 - high performance real-time database 

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 is integrated in the basic WinCC system – including its real-time response, performance and industrial standard. Using a variety of open interfaces, you can further-process archive data using any external tools you like at any time you choose.

Using OLE, you can integrate further applications in process pictures and exchange the associated data. Technology-specific or vertical market ActiveX controls can also enter the system and this means that the time and effort that you have invested in engineering can also be used for your operation and monitoring tasks. There are plenty of components of this type on the market.

Whenever people want to create standards for solutions that are specific to branches of industr y or to projects, there is a desire for individual customizing and extensions to the configuration tool.  With WinCC Version 6, we integrated VBA in the WinCC Graphics Designer -which is the user-friendly standard environment for application-specific extensions 

VBScript or ANSI-C - it's your choice when scripting

Normally pictures, logic operations and animation are configured via simple dialogs. Scripts can also be programmed using VBScript or in ANSI-C when necessary, for example to convert values, to initiate a report or to generate operator messages.

Open programming interfaces - C-API

Would you like more individual applications? The WinCC function modules are open due to API interfaces that allow access to the data and functions of the configuration and runtime system. This means that you can use WinCC configuration and runtime functions in your scripts or even develop standalone applications with direct access to WinCC. And using the Open Development Kit (ODK) accessing the programming interfaces is really easy.

OLE for Process Control - for non-proprietary communication

In WinCC, non-proprietary communication in the field of automation has always been very important. As an OPC DA client, WinCC can log on locally or across the network in the case of lower-level controllers for current process data and has this data sent to it from the associated OPC DA server on a cyclical basis. In the other direction, the WinCC OPC DA server can make available current process data to other OPC compatible applications like Microsoft Excel, for example, for further-processing.

You can implement access to WinCC archive data via OPC HDA (Historical Data Access). In OPC A&E, the system displays a WinCC message as an alarm and, together with all the ancillary process values, passes it on to any subscribers on the production or company management levels. Working as an OPC XML-server Wincc uses the non proprietary XML-standard to send data to PPS/Mes systems and receive job or recipe data in return.