ibaPDA-Interface-Generic-TCP can be used by any controller capable of sending TCP/IP messages.

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the core protocols of the Internet protocol suite. IP is responsible, on a low level, for sending messages via the Internet. TCP works on a higher level and establishes the connection between two end systems. TCP is responsible for sending a data stream in a reliable and organized way from one program in a computer to another program on a second computer.

The Generic TCP messages are IP Unicast messages that one or more controllers send to the ibaPDA system using a specified port number.

The following drawing gives an overview of a possible configuration where 3 controllers are sending TCP/IP messages to one ibaPDA system.

Properties

  • The messages sent over each connection do not need to have a fixed layout.

  • You can define a port range on the Generic TCP interface in the ibaPDA I/O Manager. In the example above, the ibaPDA driver is listening on port 5010 to port 5017 for a connection.

  • Each TCP connection is uniquely identified within ibaPDA by the destination port number and the source IP address.

Thus, ibaPDA can receive data from different controllers, which use the same destination port. It is also possible to send messages from one controller to ibaPDA over different ports.

This is shown clearly in the above example: Controllers 1 and 2 use the same port 5010 but have different IP addresses. Controller 1 sends several messages and uses different ports for sending (5010 and 5011).
ibaPDA specific limitations

  • The number of the supported connections in ibaPDA depends on the Generic TCP license (64, 128, 192 or 256).

The following controllers apply:

  • Any system capable of sending TCP/IP messages