Questions about the Datafusion General Session

[LinenMaster]

In the presentation it was mentioned about licesning Datafusion.

Please provide more information about what is meant by licesning
Datafusion.


Thanks,

Scott

[Steve Tinker]

To all:

TCATA owns the DataFusion Protocol trademark. The DataFusion committee
will have the authority to grant usage of the DataFusion trademark and
logo to any company that meets appropriate standards of compliance,
performance, etc. For example if a company incorporates DataFusion
Protocol into their data communications software, etc. they may wish to
advertise that their equipment or software is "DataFusion Protocol
Compatible" by using the logo and trademark. This would be similar to
the makersa of PCs that use the "Intel Inside" logo and trademark to
indicate their microprocessor capabilities.

This licensing of the trademark is an area that the Committee has not
yet defined. However, it is envisioned that there will be some sort of
licensing fee that may be limited to a specific term of time. Licensing
companies would have to demonstrate that they meet the standards of use
that the committee develops, etc.

For your consideration.

Steven J. Tinker
Director, Research & Development
Gurtler Industries, Inc.
Phone: 708-331-2550
Fax: 708-331-1210

[David GABraun]

Steve,

Just wanted to respond to the "DataFusion Protocol Compatible". If the
idea is to create a web service over an intranet for responding to
http get and put commands then we are all currently "DataFusion
Compatible". Several years ago there was an expression used in the
industry of ISLANDS OF AUTOMATION defining the use of different
hardware and communication protocols used within the industry. Based
on what I have read recently we are creating ISLANDS OF WEBSERVICES. I
think we need to step back and define what are the standards of
compliance that we as vendors need to comply to. The one page I
thought was on the right track was the
DFfinishingLineProductionWebService.doc. From a software development
standpoint having a common GET protocol such as(http://vendorX/
dataFusion/DFfinishingLineProduction/default.aspx?
startDateTime=2008-02-26T08:00:00&endDateTime=2008-02-26T08:59:59) to
develop with makes more sense than having to create a unique one for
each vendor. We just replace VendorX in a setup file with the name of
the company I want to Get data from. Some of the current web services
use dates on Get commands and some don't. Some of the XML files define
data types while others do not. If a customer has a Chicago finishing
line and a Braun finishing line they should be able to retrieve the
same DataFusion XML file from both lines by changing the VendorX
parameter of the Get command.

If we are all truly going to be "DataFusion Protocol Compatible" then
we need the standards that this will be defined by. If you need
someone to lead this initiative then I would be glad to offer my
services. I know the idea of DataFusion is a good one and something
the industry needs. I applaud Milnor, ETech and Chicago for taking the
initiative to start the process but I'd hate to see it suffer the same
fate as other efforts in the past. We need to work in one common
direction and not a free for all in many.

David Proudman

Controls Application Engineer
G.A. Braun, Inc.
461 East Brighton Ave.
Syracuse, NY 13205
Ph: (315) 299-3273
Fax: (315) 475-4130
E-mail: dpro...@gabraun.com

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[LinenMaster]

To a degree you are correct, I would have the expectation that in a
plant with "mixed" equipment a service name be called and expect to
receive the same XML data.

However the problem is that unless the webservice is developed on same
platform the webservice calls cannot be the same.

I believe that Etech is using Linux, while Chicago is using MS. The
Linux webservice may be developed using PHP vs .NET. - hence one of
the ideas behind "REST" - REST being nothing more than a generic
protocol stating that a web service must exist, and the methods and
platforms are not tied to any one flavor.

I think this where a WSDL for each vendor comes into play. A WSDL can
contain the whole library of services offered (by vendor) and the
prototype on how to call them. Further WSDLs are platform independent.

What this does for a developer is allow them to use the WSDL from any
vendor as reference in the code. Therefore only needing 1 reference
for each vendor. Instead of having to update code for each service
and code in the parameter string.

In effect it would be like loading a library / class of functions.
(In developer terms).

I think that would satisfy all parties - being able to develop
services as you see fit; but standardize how a developer calls
methods.

But at the end of the day what is key to is make sure the XML Tags are
uniform between like equipement (not between all equipment). So all
CBWs would transmit the same tags,then all ironers, folders, etc would
have thier own set of tags - which some may the be same used by other
equipment types.

Scott
Computer Software Architects

> E-mail: dproud...@gabraun.com

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