Portland, Maine Kepware Technologies has announced that its KEPServerEX communications solution has passed the latest OPC certifications tests administered by the OPC Foundation independent test laboratory.
KEPServerEX, Kepwares primary offering for communications in automation has been OPC compliant based on self certification guidelines. In February of 2008, the OPC Foundation introduced a new level of compliance testing administered through an authorized and independent test lab in Germany. Kepware submitted its current product for testing and won certification without alteration. Modbus and Siemens protocols were evaluated as part of KEPServerEX compliance testing. All other KEPServerEX protocols will behave similarly, and as such, KEPServerEX certification will apply regardless of protocol in use.
The OPC Certification process is extremely thorough, says Tony Paine, executive vice president and CTO for Kepware. We have a very high degree of confidence in our product, and we are thrilled to have achieved certification without having to make changes. In actuality, the process did highlight two areas of ambiguity, nothing that has ever affected our customers to the best of our knowledge. They have been addressed, primarily to enable Kepware to claim the first perfect score in the certification process.
The architecture and design of the Kepware products is outstanding, says Thomas Burke, President of the OPC Foundation. Many vendors resell and rebrand versions of the KEPServerEX product. Kepwares OPC certification automatically applies to all these products. Future vendors that partner with Kepware and leverage KEPServerEX, will also instantly benefit from the OPC certification that Kepware offers.