Computer hardware products and software products used to automatically collect data from sensors, readers, transducers, and other types of input devices, and used to automatically control motors, solenoids, actuators, displays, annunciators, and other output devices, in data acquisition and control systems in industrial environments; computer hardware and software products used to automatically collect input data and provide output commands to remote stations, in data acquisition and control systems in industrial environments; computer hardware and software products used as an integrated web server or embedded server over a global computer network, in data acquisition and control systems in industrial environments; computer hardware and software products used for business-to-device connectivity, XML data format communications, remote management and updating of remote stations, access over a network including a global computer network to real-time data, alarms, trends, reports, and recipes, generating graphics displays used with point and click procedures, and providing a simulation mode for ease of development, in data acquisition and control systems in industrial environments; computer hardware and software products used to communicate over a network including a global computer network to virtually any manufacturer's programmable logic controller or input/output station, and send that information to any location on the network without needing to change the configuration of the programmable logic controller, in data acquisition and control systems in industrial environments; computer hardware and software products used to check production data on critical process, machine, or order in real-time, without waiting on batch reports, and to collect data from many distributed machines or processes in real-time, analyzing the data, and sending new optimized parameters back, in data acquisition and control systems in industrial environments; computer hardware and software products used for remote machine diagnostics, utility monitoring, server room monitoring, vendor-managed inventory, remote administration, and telecommunications equipment, in data acquisition and control systems in industrial environments; computer hardware and software products used to link a data acquisition and control system to a display screen/operator interface, or display monitor/operator interface, in industrial environments; computer hardware and software products used to link a data acquisition and control system to a server, in industrial environments; computer hardware and software products used to link a data acquisition and control system to one or more input/output devices, in industrial environments