Deploy LabVIEW VIs as Web Services
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Remotely interface with LabVIEW applications without the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine using standard HTTP protocols.
The NI LabVIEW graphical programming environment has a history of providing developers with numerous options for networked communication, including remote front panels and shared variables. These features, along with the use of shared libraries and technologies such as ActiveX, have ensured that LabVIEW is an open language that provides flexible options for communicating with remote hardware and other applications.
The proliferation of Ethernet and wireless communications has furthered the trend toward application distribution across both local and global networks. With LabVIEW 8.6, developers can deploy existing VIs as Web services, helping them send data over HTTP in any number of custom formats including XML. By deploying a VI into a Web service, developers can control and monitor LabVIEW applications from a Web browser or client application without needing LabVIEW or the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine.
LabVIEW developers can provide their customers with fully customized thin clients developed in common technologies such as Adobe Flash, JavaScript, and HTML to display information from hardware such as NI CompactRIO, NI Compact FieldPoint, and National Instruments PXI hardware. Clients can invoke a VI from any Web-enabled device via a formatted request using the HTTP protocol, which has become ubiquitous for Web communications.
Learn more about Web services in LabVIEW 8.6.
This article first appeared in the Q3 2008 issue of Instrumentation Newsletter.
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