Thin clients (including Mobile Access)

This section describes how to make your project accessible to thin clients and mobile devices.

AVEVA Edge is built on a server/client architecture that can support both thick clients and thin clients. The choice of the type of client depends upon your system requirements:

• A thick client is a computer that performs most, if not all, of the processing activity during project run time. It has sufficient processing power, memory, and graphics to run the complete project files, and it only exchanges data (that is, function syncronization and tag value changes) with the project runtime server as needed. (A project runtime server can also be a thick client to another server.)

  In AVEVA Edge, thick clients are handled through Remote Management.

• A thin client is a computer that depends primarily on the project runtime server for processing. It only needs to have a network connection to get screens and data from the server and a web browser to display the screens to the user.

Thin Clients in AVEVA Edge

You can create screens that can be viewed on a remote station. The station where the user can view the screens is called the thin client.

The full software is installed on the server station. All project files — the tags database, screen files, and task worksheets — are stored on the server, and all background and communication tasks are executed on the server.

The thin client loads the project's graphical interface (the screens containing objects and animations) as needed and then uses that interface to represent data (tag values) that is stored on the server. You do not need to install the development application or any of the project files on the thin client.

These solutions provide a high level of flexibility because any computer that has a network connection to the server station (via TCP/IP) can access the project during run time.

Note: Since screens and screen objects may contain scripting, using VBScript and/or the built-in scripting language, these scripts are executed on the thin client.

The three types of thin client feature are:

• Web thin clients use an ActiveX-based feature to allow you to access the project screens in Microsoft Edge (using Internet Explorer mode).

• Secure viewer thin clients use the Secure Viewer configuration utility (ViewerCfg.exe) installed on the client device.

• Mobile Access (also called Studio Mobile Access) uses a web server extension to view the project screens in an HTML5-based web client.

  

Competitive Advantages of Thin Clients

AVEVA Edge is built on a server/client architecture that supports true thin clients. This is a built-in capability, not an add-on. This means that:

• The project runtime server can support a large number of simultaneous thin client connections. Each thin client can view the same or different screens as another thin client.

• The server knows which screen each thin client is viewing and automatically "pushes" any tag value changes to the thin client, thereby eliminating the need for browser refreshes.

• The server can support runtime language switching for each thin client, which means that one thin client can display a screen in English while another thin client can display the same screen in Spanish.

• The project can be configured to support redundant data and web servers with automatic switch-over.

Thin Client Licensing

The maximum number of simultaneous thin client connections depends on settings of the license installed on the project runtime server. The user does not need to install any license on the thin client.