Industrial automation manufacturer Opto 22 announces it has joined The Linux Foundation as a Silver Level member. As a Linux Foundation member, Opto 22 will help support the greatest shared technology resources in history, while also accelerating the company’s technology and innovation through open-source leadership and participation. In joining The Linux Foundation, Opto 22 hopes to spearhead the adoption of open-source technology in the industrial automation and process control industries, and accelerate the rollout of Industrial Internet of Things applications.
“It’s exciting to see a vendor from a traditionally proprietary technology space such as industrial automation and process control join The Linux Foundation. It is a testament to the power of open- source technology and the community that supports it and allows it to thrive,” said Mike Woster, COO of The Linux Foundation.
New technologies from the open-source community are beginning to enter the traditionally proprietary technology space of industrial applications. As open-source adoption grows, commerce and society will come to depend on the software code developed to support that adoption. The future of these critical technologies can’t be left to chance. They require a neutral, independent organization like The Linux Foundation to manage the infrastructure and sustain their code and communities over the long term.
Opto 22 has long been a proponent of using open standards and technology as well as commercially available off-the-shelf products in industrial applications and internal product development. One of the first manufacturers in the industrial automation industry to design products on open standards, Opto 22 was one of the first control and I/O system manufacturers to add Ethernet connectivity and the TCP/IP protocol to an industrial controller.
Since then the company has followed up its commitment to open-source technology and the accelerated adoption of industry standards by releasing an industry-first RESTful API (application program interface) to an industrial automation controller. With this RESTful API, developers can use their software language of choice to build applications that collect data from and control real- world electrical devices like sensors, motors, and pumps. Shortly after releasing the RESTful API, Opto 22 released Node-RED nodes for its SNAP PAC system controllers, to accelerate the rapid development of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications. Most recently, Opto 22 added the Node-RED development environment to its IIoT application platform, the groov Box.
With the addition of the Node-RED development environment, groov is the ideal toolset for IIoT application developers. groov fuses together an industrially rugged hardware platform, data visualization for mobile and web clients, robust industrial automation protocol support including Modbus/TCP and OPC UA, and advanced data flow processing. Add these to its ability to connect multiple data sources including devices, databases, and third-party APIs, and groov becomes a single, cohesive, cost-effective, and powerful platform for nearly any IIoT or edge computing application.
“When businesses choose to leverage open-source software, they are in effect choosing to free themselves of the painful pitfall of vendor lock-in. Customers who choose to adopt a product built around a proprietary technology stack are at the mercy of their vendor,” says Benson Hougland, VP of Marketing and Product Strategy for Opto 22. “It’s time to start driving our products toward a development strategy that liberates customers from vendor lock-in and gives them a choice of vendors to work with.”
