What CSWorks Is
CSWorks is a Microsoft .NET-based framework for building process control solutions that meet the following criteria:
CSWorks consists of two major parts: server framework and client framework.
CSWorks server framework is a set of highly customizable server-side components that:
- provide access to arbitrary data sources through a simple yet powerful pluggable provider model (1.1);
- perform live data, alarm and historical data processing (1.2);
- allow developers to create custom data processing components (1.2).
Server framework functionality is exposed to custom data processing components through web services and WCF. All configuration settings are stored in the correspondent config files and can be easily manipulated from applications or scripts (4). Server framework has components that perform data stream multiplexing, giving a lot of possibilities for redundancy and partitioning (5). Architecture section has some diagrams that may help you understand how CSWorks server framework components interact with each other.
CSWorks client framework is a set of Microsoft Silverlight-based components that:
- perform data exchange with CSWorks server components through web services (2);
- implement some useful graphics controls (tanks, numeric displays, alarm summaries etc).
Application developers can use CSWorks client framework when building zero-administration Silverlight clients (3) for CSWorks server-based solutions.
Microsoft Silverlight with it's powerful graphics engine (6) and unlimited possibilities for writing custom components (1.3) is the hosting environment for CSWorks-powered client applications.
What CSWorks Is Not
This is not an out-of-the-box HMI/EMI application. Application developer creates process control solutions using Microsoft .NET 3.5, Microsoft Silverlight and CSWorks.
This is not a development environment. Application developer must be familiar with Microsoft .NET and Microsoft Silverlight development tools (Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Expression) in order to create CSWorks-powered solutions.
CSWorks client framework does not have a custom "runtime engine" that hosts the client application. CSWorks client application is just a regular Silverlight application that uses some components from CSWorks client framework.
CSWorks client framework is not a complete set of HMI controls. In fact, we keep our client object model simple, and application developers are encouraged to create their own controls that can be pretty complex (e.g.: recipes, multistate indicators, gauges). Also, we are following Silverlight data binding guidelines, so application developers can easily use any third-party controls in their CSWorks applications (ComponentOne, Infragistics, Telerik, MobiForm etc).
Learn More
If you want to know more about CSWorks, read about the product architecture or check out the blog.
You can download current version of CSWorks and sample applications here.
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