[00:00] So you're thinking about moving your Siemens S7 devices over to the Siemens S7 Symbolic Driver? In this video, we'll see just how easy the migration path really is. Even though you won't get symbolic browsing with the migration, you may see some performance improvements plus get some support for some new datatypes. Ignition supports absolute addressing using two different syntax options. You can either use the same syntax as the legacy driver, so there's no big learning curve to worry about, or you can use a superset of the TIA portal syntax where you can swap out the operand type for the data type. Whichever method you feel more comfortable with, go for it. For my example, with an S7 300 device, I'm sticking with the old-school legacy driver syntax, so all we gotta do is delete those old legacy device configs in the gateway and set up new ones with the exact same name. If you use this approach, you won't have to touch any OPC Item Paths for your tags, making it quick and simple to migrate to the newest driver with absolute addressing. Let's try it out together.

[01:09] In my gateway, I'll navigate to Connections, then Devices, then click on Connections. Here I have an existing device connection called Migrate Demo, and I'm using the S7 300 legacy driver to power that connection. In my designer, I've also got several tags associated with that S7 device set up in my tag browser and data's coming through for them. To kick off this migration party, I'll head back to my device connections in the gateway, click on the three dots menu next to that legacy driver connection, and pick Rename. I'll just slap Legacy onto the name, and that's all it takes to break its connection with my tags. If we switch over to the designer again, we can see the values have all stopped updating and we get an error message whenever we hover over the tag values. I'll switch back to the gateway and we can set up a new connection. This new connection will use the Siemens Driver device connection powered by the Siemens S7 Symbolic Driver module instead of the Siemens S7 driver Legacy device connection.

[02:10] Just in case you need it for reference, here's a quick breakdown of the available modules and device connections. We're going to use the exact same name as the last connection -- MigrateDemo. As long as the name matches the old connection, it means we don't have to fuss with any OPC Item Paths for the tags we already have. Now, I can pop in the address of my device. I'll just leave these default port and timeout settings alone since I don't need to tweak anything for this demo. Next up, we should pick S7 300 as the device type. Then we can make sure the address type is set to absolute. This is the key, so the new driver can play nice with the old syntax and our existing connections won't break. I can also keep the rack and slot numbers at the default values. While this example doesn't require require much work in the advanced settings, those settings will give you some chances for data optimization and ramped up security.

[03:06] You can find more details about them in the Ignition User Manual, so keep an eye out for the relevant links below this video. As for password setup, you got a few choices. I'm just gonna pick None since in this case my device doesn't need a password. However, it's important to know that both embedded and referenced secrets offer different levels of data indirection, which can make your passwords in Ignition more secure. We'll dive deep into those secrets management methods and other videos, so stay tuned. I'll switch back over to the designer and we can go to the tag browser to make sure our new connection is working. Looks like our values are coming through. To keep our focus on the new driver connection and clean up our gateway a bit, we can return to our device connections page and delete the old legacy connection. Now our migration is almost complete. Let's hop back over to the designer and take a quick peek in an individual tag.

[04:03] We didn't have to change a thing in the OPC Item Path for it to work normally. That's because the new connection's name matches the old one, the new driver supports the old legacy driver syntax, and the migration path has full backwards compatibility. Now you have a quick and easy way to move your old Siemens device connections to the Siemens S7 Symbolic Driver in Ignition. By simply renaming the old connection to break it and making a new one with the same name, you don't have to mess with any existing OPC Item Paths. This migration not only may give you a boost in read speeds, but it also lets you use all the new driver features while keeping everything compatible with your existing tag setup.