On-Demand CFX Education

IPC provides on-demand, self-paced education to support successful CFX implementations. These courses are delivered through IPC EDGE, IPC’s training and certification portal.

Stay tuned to this page for new course offerings. To get course offering updates as they become available, share your contact information.

 

Go to IPC EDGE to register for these courses and begin your learning today.

 

CFX 100 Series Education Modules          

Each of these 15-minute courses is designed for equipment suppliers, software developers and IT professionals interested in implementing CFX in their own products or factory environments.

CFX 101: Introduction to IPC-CFX

This introductory module provides an overview of CFX and addresses some fundamental questions, including:

  • What exactly is CFX?
  • Who benefits from CFX?
  • What challenges does CFX address?

This module also explains how CFX uses standardized transport protocols, language and encoding to enable seamless communication between devices from different manufacturers. Additionally, this module provides links to resources designed to help learn more about CFX and its implementation.

Course content:

  • Background and Purpose
    • What Is CFX?
    • Why Was It created?
    • The Problems with Middleware
  • How does CFX work?
    • Transport
    • Content
    • Encoding
  • The CFX Capability-Based Data Model
    • Building Block Concept
  • Introducing the CFX Software Development Kit (SDK)
  • Getting Help

CFX 110: Understanding an IPC-CFX Network

This module explains the overall architecture of a CFX network, beginning with the way in which machines and software systems use CFX to communicate with each other.

The module includes explanations of important concepts, such as CFX endpoints, CFX handles, and the black box concept, which is critical to the simplicity and power of CFX.

This module also explains different messaging patterns of CFX, including “Event Publish,” “Event Subscription,” “Broadcast Request/Response” and “Direct Request/Response.”

Course content:

  • Overall Architecture of an CFX Network
    • Endpoints and Handles
    • Message Routing and Black Box Concept
  • Messaging Patterns
    • Publishing Events
    • Receiving Events Published by Other Endpoints
    • Receiving and Processing Broadcast Requests
    • Direct Request/Response Communications

 

CFX 111: Configuring Your Endpoint to Participate in an IPC-CFX Network

This module explains how to set up endpoints to participate in a CFX network, including all of the settings needed for end-users to be able to configure. The lesson begins with a brief recap of how message routing works with CFX and the messaging patterns to consider when configuring an endpoint. After this recap, the module goes through each messaging pattern in detail and explains how to set up each one.

Course content:

  • CFX Networking Recap
  • AMQP 1.0 Sources and Targets
  • Message Brokers and AMQP 0.x Concepts
    • Exchanges and Queues
    • Exchange Types
  • Typical End-User Configuration(s) for CFX Equipment

CFX 112: Introduction to the IPC-CFX SDK Part I

This module provides a detailed look at the CFX Software Development Kit (SDK).

The lesson begins with the process of downloading the SDK and adding it to your development solution and then shows how to use SDK to code, all of the basic IPC-CFX messaging patterns and demonstrates how to create and transmit your first CFX message. The lesson closes with an explanation of the CFX GitHub site and how to access the source code.

Course content:

  • High-Level Overview of the SDK, and Its Namespaces
  • Adding the SDK to Your Solution
  • Creating and Transmitting Your First CFX Message
  • Typical Message Transmission Scenarios
    • Publication
    • Request / Response
  • Accessing GitHub and the .NET SDK Source Code

CFX 113: Introduction to the IPC-CFX SDK Part II

This module explores some of the advanced features of the CFX Software Development Kit (SDK), including reliability features such as message spooling, security topics like encryption and authentication, and diagnostic and logging features.

Course content:

  • SDK Reliability Features and Message Spooling
  • Securing Your Endpoint with Authentication
  • Implementing Network Security and Encryption

Go to IPC EDGE to register for these courses and begin your learning today.