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Ports, services and protocols

All FairCom products provide multiple services that communicate using various protocols on TCP/IP ports. You can configure ports and services to communicate using specified protocols.

The services include web applications and APIs, which support SQL, JSON commands, ISAM, and so forth.

Each service is provided by a plugin or a built-in library.

  • A plugin is a dynamic library (dll, so, or dylib) that the FairCom server optionally loads at startup. For information about configuring plugins and the ports they use, see Manage plug-ins.

  • Built-ins are permanent core API services that also use dynamic libraries that are provided by the server.

A plugin or a built-in can provide one or more services. Each service has a specific function, such as supporting an API like the JSON Action API, connecting to a protocol like OPC UA, or transforming data.

The FairCom server enables mapping protocols to communication ports and services. The server listens on many ports to a variety of protocols and sends incoming traffic to multiple services — for example, MQTT clients can connect to the FairCom Edge server and communicate using different protocols, such as MQTT, MQTTS, WS, and WSS. Clients using JSON can connect to a FairCom server using protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS, WS, WSS, MQTT, and MQTTS to access the jsonAction functions.

Some services (such as SQL, jsonAction, and ISAM) use the same communication pattern, such as the request/response pattern, and perform the same functions, such as querying, inserting, updating, and deleting records. Since these services work equally well across multiple communication protocols, like WS, WSS, HTTP, HTTPS, TCP/IP, and Shared Memory, the SQL, ISAM, and JSON Action API can potentially run with any of these communication protocols. For example, in FairCom DB, the ISAM service is available over TCP/IP and Shared Memory. This makes choosing communication protocols and services a matter of client preference.

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is the combination of a networking protocol (TCP) and computer addressing (IP) that makes it possible for computers to communicate across the Internet.

Internet protocols: hostname, HTTP, HTTPS, IP, IP Address, MQTT, MQTTS, MQTTWSS, protocol, TCP, TCP/IP, TLS, WebSocket

Structured Query Language (SQL) is a standardized programming language that is used to manage relational databases and perform various operations on the data in them.

FairCom's SQL engine is ANSI compliant and has almost all SQL features up through the SQL:2003 standard.

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a simple format for representing data. It requires very little markup and is flexible enough to represent the majority of data structures. It is self-describing, which makes it ideal for schemaless applications and search. It can optionally be paired with a schema to define an expected structure.

Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM) is FairCom's primary ACE API. ISAM uses the Record Buffer Method, which gives the application full control over the contents of the entire record buffer to store structured or unstructured data.

FairCom's ISAM API provides full control over record processing. This allows developers to implement data processing algorithms that are tailored to precise application needs, and this allows an application to achieve unrivaled performance. FairCom's ISAM API works best in the C and C++ languages.

FairCom ACE APIs include ISAM, CTDB, and Low-level ACE API.

Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is a machine-to-machine communication protocol for industrial automation. OPC UA is the latest, easiest, and most robust protocol from the OPC Foundation.

The FairCom Edgeprovides a connector to OPC UA to bridge data from OPC UA devices to other protocols, including MQTT, JSON, and SQL.