Direct Serial Communication and Serial Encapsulation

This Communication Driver supports direct serial communication with the target device, as well as serial encapsulation over a TCP/IP or UDP/IP network link.

Direct serial communication requires that the target device be directly connected to the computer that is running this Communication Driver. If you plan to use direct serial communication, you need to know the serial communication settings (e.g., baud rate, parity, etc.) that have been configured on the device, because you must configure this Communication Driver to match those settings.

Serial encapsulation enables serial communication with a target device that is connected to a terminal server on your TCP/IP or UDP/IP network. The terminal server is like a virtual serial port. It converts TCP or UDP messages to serial data and then relays them to the connected device. If you plan to use serial encapsulation, the target device should already be connected to the terminal server, and you need to know the IP address of the terminal server and the port number assigned to the device.