Which Type of Client Should I Use?

We recommend that you use ViewX clients for day-to-day and long-term use in Control rooms. ViewX is the client that also provides administrator- and configuration-level access to Geo SCADA Expert (for User Accounts that are configured to provide such levels of access). Virtual ViewX and Original WebX only provide operator-level access to the database (once you have logged on with a valid Geo SCADA Expert User Account).

Virtual ViewX clients are web-based clients that are intended to provide occasional, operator-level, remote access to the database. The benefits of Virtual ViewX clients compared to ViewX clients include:

• Quicker installation—You install the Virtual ViewX software on a web server machine to which your Virtual ViewX clients connect. On each Virtual ViewX client, you merely specify the address of that Virtual ViewX web server in a browser window. Providing that the number of Virtual ViewX clients that are accessing the web server does not exceed the license for that Virtual ViewX server, you should then be able to log on and access the database.
• Platform-agnostic—You can use most up-to-date HTML5-compatible web browsers to access Geo SCADA Expert from your Virtual ViewX clients (see Web Browser Support).
• Remote access—You can launch Virtual ViewX on a desktop or laptop machine wherever you have network access to your Virtual ViewX server. The Virtual ViewX server uses the Microsoft IIS web server as its foundation; this enables you to take advantage of those security features and management tools. The Virtual ViewX server can connect to multiple and redundant Geo SCADA Expert servers.

The benefits of ViewX clients compared to Virtual ViewX clients include:

• Faster performance—If speed of opening displays and receiving data updates is critical to your operation, as ViewX clients obtain their data directly from the Geo SCADA Expert server, updates will be marginally quicker on ViewX clients. (Whereas Virtual ViewX clients obtain their data from the Virtual ViewX server, which in turn obtains its data from the Geo SCADA Expert server, so data updates will be marginally slower. Additionally, the screen virtualization used by the ViewX clients has a slightly slower operational speed than the display response time of ViewX clients.)
• Separate hardware—You install ViewX software on each ViewX client machine. As such, any hardware failures typically only impact a single machine. (Whereas if hardware fails on a Virtual ViewX server machine, each of the Virtual ViewX clients that are configured to connect to that web server will lose access to the Geo SCADA Expert database.)
• Customized Display Setup—You can configure ViewX clients to have a Multi-Monitor or Multiple Instance setup. You can also customize the ViewX interface independently on each ViewX client. (With Virtual ViewX clients, the Virtual ViewX server defines the resolution that is used on those clients.)

Additionally, ViewX clients can provide the following functionality:

• Administration—You can typically only create or modify User Accounts from a ViewX client (providing that your User Account has the relevant permissions to do so). Additionally, you can only perform other administrator-level activities (such as start or stop the server) from a ViewX client (providing that your User Account has the relevant permissions to do so).
• Configuration—You can typically only configure the database using ViewX (providing that your User Account has the relevant permissions to do so).
• Audible Alarms—Providing that the alarm bell has not been configured so that it remains silent, audible alarms are available on ViewX clients on which the Alarm Banner is displayed.
• Multi-Display—With ViewX, you can drag and drop displays outside of the main ViewX window, and even drag them over onto other monitors. (With Virtual ViewX clients, you are restricted to moving displays around within the confines of the browser window.)

(Original WebX is the deprecated web client that is supported by this and previous versions of Geo SCADA Expert. Your system might use Original WebX clients if it has been upgraded from an earlier version of the product. For more information about this type of client, see Original WebX Client.)