Robertson
Joined on 06-23-2007
Posts 6
PAC Controller Enhancement
Suggestion:
Integrate a VPN tunneling feature to your SNAP PAC controllers.
As an option, be able to configure the controller to automatically establish a VPN tunnel.
Background:
Most companies have some sort of broadband connection to the internet with a dynamic address. By integrating a VPN tunneling feature on the SNAP PAC controllers, you can use the existing broadband infrastructure (already paid for) to establish communication from a remote customer site to a centralized monitoring control room.
Appreciable Enhancement:
A VPN tunnel would eliminate the need for dedicated communication facilities such as frame relay, MPLS, DSL, ISDN, dial-up (reoccurring cost).
Really enjoy working with your products.
Craig
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09-18-2008, 2:39 PM
ben orchard
Joined on 12-08-2004
Posts 33
Re: PAC Controller Enhancement
By doing a ‘port forward’ command on the existing router, this remote access can be achieved very simply.
Opto 22 uses port 22001 for PAC Control and PAC Display and port 2001 for controller to I/O.
To be sure, set up both ports to go to the IP address of the Opto 22 device and you will be up and running from anywhere in the world.
Having said that, I still take your point that it would be very cool for the PAC controller to do all that for you…
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10-01-2008, 9:38 AM
Bryce
Joined on 01-15-2004
Temecula, CA
Posts 19
Re: PAC Controller Enhancement
As a footnote to Ben’s entry, later versions of PAC Control 8.2(e or later) allows I/O units to be defined with the same IP address but different ports. Prior versions would not allow the same I/P address.
This is important because a NAT router looks like a single IP address. The NAT just maps ports of the public side of the router to IP addresses and ports on the private side of the router. This means you can have a handful of devices that to the “outside world” look like a single IP address but with different ports hence the change to PAC Control.