EXPAND A SINGLE-NODE SYSTEM BY A COUPLE OR MORE NODES, OR CHANGE TOPOLOGIES, OR CONNECT COMPUTERS TO ANOTHER SERVER - AND "THINGS GET CO MPLICATED," states Rashesh Mody, vice president of human-machine-interface (HMI) and supervisory-control-and-data-acquisition (SCADA) services for manufacturing software vendor Wonderware (www.wonderware.com), Lake Forest, Calif. Feasible remedies to these induced complexities lie with integrated-development environments (IDEs). They help end-users meet their needs with their applications, which increasingly incorporate different types and speeds of analog and digital input/output, notes Kamran Shah, LabView marketing manager at automation vendor National Instruments (www.ni.com), Austin, Texas. IDEs offer that assistance by offering development tools and functionalities such as control-programming software/command libraries, HMI development tools, data-exchange software and debugging tools, adds Tom Edwards, senior technical advisor at automation-and-controls vendor Opto 22 (www.opto22.com), Temecula, Calif.
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