Despite the fact that it's a bit hard to find a good COM port in today's consumer market, it's still an essential component of lots of industrial equipment. Nowadays, a serial interface is useful in communicating with uninterruptible power supplies, satellite receivers, safety devices, cash registers, specialized hardware for the development of embedded computing systems, as well as lots of other tools that serve various technological purposes.
Big challenge
With the increasing level of automation in industries, technical specialists continue to see reasons to create serial communication between COM port devices that aren't close to each other. With that, it means it's either impossible to establish a physical connection between the serial peripherals (due to the remoteness), or there's the need for extra hardware connectors, which cause expenses to skyrocket.
Optimal solution
Considering how relevant this problem is, lots of manufacturers of RS232 to LAN adapters, serial to Ethernet converters, serial over IP adapters, or console servers ten to raise their products' functionality by ensuring that they can connect COM ports over the network. If you are looking for the most efficient solution to turn to in this situation, the answer is Eltima Port Virtualization (EPV) Technology. The technology is integrated into the core of hardware servers and makes it possible for any IP adapter to connect to a remote COM port wherever it's located.
EPV technology converts the RS232 data into TCP or UDP protocol data, depending on the network type chosen. Such data stream conversion is possible because EPV technology comes as a component of the operating system of a hardware appliance (ARM, Android, and so on). If you take out the serial port redirection technology from the equation, it will be impossible for data sent by a serial to Ethernet connector over the network to be received by a client system. Thus when hardware manufacturers implement the EPV technology in their products' software program, they are able to solve the problem of access to remote COM ports. As a result, when data from a serial protocol is converted to a network one, the EPV technology makes it easy to set up a limitless number of virtual serial ports in any client system. A remote serial device, when connected to virtual COM port, is recognized by a client system and shown in its Device Manager as a local one.
Integrating EPV into your hardware solution will come with lots of benefits. You gain a competitive advantage in the serial to Ethernet converters manufacturing industry; you get the opportunity to harness untapped markets, as EPV lets you:
-
Significantly increase your product's capabilities
-
Give your customers the possibility of saving on extra equipment
-
Present your customer base with a hardware solution that helps them improve their technological processes.
-
Ultimately, EPV Technology offers support for RFC 2217 that presents a standard protocol used in data transfer to and from serial device servers, as well as CAN bus to Ethernet Gateways. With the innovation of Eltima Port Virtualization Technology to add virtual COM ports to any client computer, hardware manufacturers can concentrate on firmware and other aspects of software development.
Access several remote devices from a single server
Another important benefit of Serial to Ethernet technology is that it helps enterprises to be able to access several serial ports even from a single server. As often seen in big factories, very large or bulky industrial equipment is connected to one control center, which is a data server. The server makes it possible for streams of data to be redirected to the network. Integrating EPV Technology into the server part opens up the possibility of accessing a limitless number of remote COM port devices over the network, thus eliminating the need to set up any physical connection.