text: <s>[INST] What is FactoryTalk? Hi All, I'm just interested in gathering a few opinions on this. I've been noticing more and more recently that even amongst more established customers and certainly amongst newer engineers in the Automation space, the lack of understanding on what FactoryTalk is and what it means. I feel like this lack of understanding jus makes it easier for competition to creep in (not the only reason). I wonder if anyone has similar experiences? My thoughts on addressing this are maybe some series of blogs explaining FactoryTalk, services platform, directory, linx, security etc... and how it all fits together. Some short YouTube content to back it up would be great. I've been spending a bit of time on Influx Data Community Blogs and find lots of interesting and informative articles like this Real-Time Energy Management with InfluxDB and eSoftLink IoT Platform | InfluxData Do you think this kind of content would be useful to customers (even internal)? Could the engage platform be leveraged for Blogs too? Thanks, Paul. [/INST] Know your target audience. Most people don't care how it works, but they want to understand how it benefits or impacts them. For example: Our delivery partners would be interested to hear how ACM can bulk generate the logic, IO configuration, HMI, alarms, historian, etc. because that's what they do... but operations would be more interested in the situational awareness (breadcrumb, alarming, navigation, trending) and operational value of the graphic elements. So who really cares about FTSP? and what value does it deliver? To most, it bloatware because they don't see the value. FTDirectory - Namespace. Most of the data model is created in the ACD file. You can also do the data model in other platforms such as OSI PI AF, VantagePoint, FTEG, Thingworx and etc. so th FTD namespace is not an exclusive feature. It has nothing to do with alarm roll up or navigation. FTLD - OPC DA-UA. There are many options for tag access to Logix5000 controllers. Certainly FTLinx has benefits, but there is a perceived 'baggage and complexity of FTSP, FTD, and etc. I've seen ConAgra move to KepServer for the data server and Ignition for the HMI because neither has any ties to FactoryTalk. The compatibility matrix at the PCDC scares them. KepServer does not care which version of Ignition and vice versa. FactoryTalk Security - Controller security. This is exclusive and awesome... it's also free. FactoryTalk Audit - Pretty solid offering, but not totally unique and could use some improvements. FTView had good audit for runtime HMI (DisplayClient.exe) but almost zero audit for HMI designtime (editor) Likewise Logix5000 has excellent audit for the editor but not so much for runtime events inside the controller (think Syslog). FTLD (FTLinx) should have audit event for tag writes (it doesn't). I've seen cases where FTVSE says it wrote a tag value but it never showed up in the controller... I think FTLinx just didn't get the job done but here is no Audit from FTLinx to say it did or didn't write the tag. FactoryTalk Security - HMI and other applications. This security is enforced in the application. Kepware, Ignition, and other application have security and generally tie it to Windows AD thus the don't need the FTD device. FTAE - Controller alarms (tags and instructions) This is exclusive and awesome... it's also free. FTAE - Client\Server Our HMI Client can display OPC-UA AE... we can subscribe to a OPC-UA Server. FTAE cannot publish OPC-UA AE to an OPC-UA AE client... If we have a Logix5000 on a skid, a DCS Client cannot subscribe to our AE and we don't provide AE within the OPC-UA server. FT Activation, FT Diagnostics - basic operations... nothing to write home about FT Updater.. not officially part of FactoryTalk Services, but this is becoming a very useful tool. People want to understand what software and activations they have so that they can manage those resources and FT Updater is an excellent tool for that. Why isn't there a FT notification service (Win911) or FT MQTT? or Syslog, or System status? \\n </s>