Supervisory process control and manufacturing information system application having an extensible component model

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon for implementing a configuration facility to specify a deployment model for supervisory process control and manufacturing information applications for associating application objects to particular physical computing devices and providing a view of the distribution of the objects upon the physical computing devices, said instructions, when executed by a computer, causing the computer to perform a method comprising:

• specifying one or more physical computing device types stored on the computer-readable medium;
• specifying engines stored on the computer-readable medium that execute upon the physical computing devices and thereby define types of services supported by the physical computing devices;
• specifying application objects stored on the computer-readable medium identified by location independent object names;
• specifying areas comprising logical groupings of the application objects, said application objects being assigned area-specific handles derived from an association with the specified areas;
• specifying assignments of the engines to particular ones of the physical computing devices, and assignments of the areas to particular ones of the engines;
• and
• depicting, in accordance with a set of hierarchical relationships specifying the assignments of the engines, a hierarchy of physical computing devices, engines, and areas;
• wherein a first application object is configured to communicate with a second application object through an engine hosting at least one of the areas to which the first application object is assigned using the assigned handle of the second application object.

A method of specifying a deployment model for supervisory process control and manufacturing information applications to associate application objects to particular physical computing devices and provide a view of the distribution of the objects upon the physical computing devices, said method comprising:

• specifying, by platform definitions implemented by a computer executing a configuration facility, one or more physical computing device types;
• specifying, by engine definitions implemented by the computer executing the configuration facility, engines that execute upon the physical computing devices and thereby define types of services supported by the physical computing devices;
• specifying application objects identified by location independent object names;
• specifying, by area definitions implemented by the computer executing the configuration facility, areas comprising logical groupings of the application objects, said application objects being assigned area-specific handles derived from an association with the specified areas;
• specifying, by a set of hierarchical relationships implemented by the computer executing the configuration facility, assignments of the engines to particular ones of the physical computing devices, and assignments of the areas to particular ones of the engines;
• and
• depicting, by a deployment view generator implemented by the computer executing the configuration facility in accordance with the set of hierarchical relationships, a hierarchy of physical computing devices, engines, and areas;
• wherein a first application object is configured to communicate with a second application object through an engine hosting at least one of the areas to which the first application object is assigned using the assigned handle of the second application object.