Xentara Basics: Data Point Access
In Xentara, Data Points are more than just variables — they are semantically rich digital representations of sensor or system data, enhanced with mostly inherited attributes such as data quality, error status, time stamps and access rights. They support both real-time and non-real-time access, semantic hierarchical addressing, and full Unicode compatibility, enabling system-independent scalability and global applicability. Data Points are allways linked to IO Points and may represent already processed or converted data. In contrast, IO Points serve as direct interfaces between tasks and either internal application logic or communication protocols. They are tightly bound to the task and therefore part of the task's internal technical data structure within Xentara Model Tree. Their structure is fixed, with predefined data types and raw values, offering no semantic flexibility. As a result, Data Points form a decoupled semantic abstraction layer, making them ideal for modeling structures such as Administration Shells or other domain-specific ontologies. Data Points reside in shared memory and are accessed via semantic paths (e.g., Life.Robot.Joint1.value), allowing for object-oriented, language-agnostic modeling. They are tightly coupled with IO Points, supporting features like limit enforcement, unit conversions, and fault injection. With customizable attributes, Data Points can carry extended metadata, documentation, and multilingual descriptions, making them particularly suitable for advanced automation and control systems that require semantic transparency and flexibility.
In Xentara, Data Points are variables that hold more semantic information and properties than their actual value. Data Points are digital images of data from the underlying sensors and fieldbuses, as well as digital copies of other systems.
They are distinguished by the following fundamental properties:
- Exceptional real-time capabilities, distinguishing between real-time and non-real-time access - Semantically flexible hierarchical pathways.
- Access even in networked operations without system-specific pathways.
- Unicode semantics (suitable for any language and character set).
- Basic characteristics "Read/Write/Update", "Data Point Quality", and "Data Point Error"
There are two types of inherited attributes: those linked to I/O channels and those within Data Point objects.
Features include predefined characteristics for boundary handling, simulation, and failure injection, as well as project-specific attribute extensibility.
Features include tight coupling with microservices, defined real-time access to data points in networked Xentara nodes, and event functionality.
Semantic Addressing
Data points are memory locations in shared memory under Linux or Windows that are referenced using an individual semantic path. Such pathways are:
- Unique to the Xentara network - Supports Unicode and several character sets.
- Unrelated to a specific IO Skill, hence optimally aligned with technological structures (no predetermined hard paths such as C:\\Users... under Windows).
- A hierarchical and object-oriented organization.
- Asignment to specific User Roles
- Expandable with additional information (e.g. documentation, different Languages, detailed cabinet origing)
Information Inheritance
Each data point is always linked to an IO Point from a skill or microservice. All attributes associated with the IO Point are automatically inherited by the data point through this connection. In case of a malfunction like a communication error affecting the connected skill and its IO Point, these errors are also propagated to the Data Point. This allows the validity and status of a data point to be reliably assessed via its attributes.
The same principle applies to role assignments. In the configuration, individual Data Points can easily be assigned to specific user roles. Additionally, it is possible to assign entire data structures, along with all their associated Data Points, to a user role.
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