By Tracy Valentine

The short and “buy our stuff” answer to this question is obviously “Yes”, but the real answer is “It Depends”. Many application factors determine if an industrial computer system solution will be appropriate. A short list of some of these factors include:

■System location requirements

■Projected service life of the system

■Number of option cards needed in the computer

■System expansion requirements

■System power and fail-over requirements

■System O/S and application software solution requirements

The first five items on this short, and by no means all-inclusive list of industrial computer integration factors relate to the computer hardware itself. The last item has an indirect hardware relationship, but for the most part, it is the system’s software component that often times will command the lion’s share of time in integrating a system. If we can unburden the OEM or End User from the task of engineering the hardware and O/S elements into the industrial computer system, that should simplify the integration task while giving the customer’s engineering resources more time for implementing the all important application software solution. For example, industrial automation motion control and distributed process control software solutions can be very complex. Virtualization[] in a motion control application involves several specialized application software components in addition to the multiple operating systems and Virtual Machine Manager or VMM software. The following articles talk about these virtualization applications and the need to have stable industrial computer hardware platforms for successful installations:

■ Motion Control Application Article

■ Distributed Process Control Article

An integrator that understands the subtle nuances of embedded computing hardware can use this knowledge to provide hardware platforms that ensure successful industrial computer installations. The simplicity of the industrial computer’s hardware integration really depends on the integrator’s knowledge of:

■ Available processors and which CPUs are long-life embedded processors

■ Option card interconnect interfaces such as PCI Express 2.0 and how these interfaces interact with various card types

■ The board topology of different single board computers and embedded motherboards, including BIOS configuration issues

■ Power supply technology and capabilities such as power availability, start-up surges and redundancy

■Hardware enclosure form factors, air-flow designs, shock & vibration concerns, availability and longevity

Trenton’s product answers to system integration simplification include our line of Standard Systems as well as our Customer-Driven Solutions product line.The TCS4500 is Trenton’s latest standard system and this 4U rackmount computer comes pre-configured with the dual-processor (Jasper Forest) JXT6966 single board computer and a BPC7041 PCI Express 2.0 backplane. The TCS3500 is an example of one of our standard systems pre-configured with a single processor, long-life embedded motherboard. Our Customer-Driven Solutions, such as our 5U TRC5002, enable more hardware choices such as two systems in one enclosure for cluster computer applications. Either way, Trenton simplifies the integration task by taking care of the hardware component, thereby enabling the OEM customer more time to dedicate to the system’s application software solution.

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This submission is from Jim Renehan, Director of Marketing.

Tracy Valentine www.trentontechnology.com