Thursday, February 23, 2012

Mark Albert's Fantastic Article on Agents and Adapters


Mark Albert has done it again with a fantastic article on MTConnect.  This time Mark tackles the tough topic of agents and adapters.   Mark's article on MTConnect agents and adapters at Modern Machine Shop is extremely well written and is a great addition to the Getting Started With MTConnect - Connectivity Guide which was led by David McPhail of Memex Automation and John Turner of FAC & T Consulting.

As Mark starts out:

"These software utilities enable existing machine tools and other shopfloor equipment to use the MTConnect communication protocol for interoperability and interfacing with other software applications.

MTConnect agents and their corresponding device adapters are simply small computer programs that work together so that MTConnect can make shop equipment and networks more readily connectible. In a nutshell, adapters enable existing shopfloor devices “to speak MTConnect,” and agents enable MTConnect messages and data files to be transmitted across a network to MTConnect-compatible applications."

It is a great article and one that we are really going to advertise at MTConnect.org and with customers, prospects, software developers, and anyone who wants to have a better understanding of agents and adapters!